THE 
TRUTH 

ABOUT 

THE 
THEATER 


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STEWART  &  KIDD  COMPANY,  PUBLISHERS. 
CINCINNATI,  U.  S.  A. 


THE  TRUTH 
ABOUT  THE  THEATER 


BY  ONE  OF  THE  BEST  KNOWN 
THEATRICAL  MEN  IN  NEW  YORK 


CINCINNATI 

STEWART  &  KIDD  COMPANY 
1916 


COPYRIGHT,  1916,  BY 
STEWART  &  KIDD  COMPANY 

All  Rights  Reserved 
COPYRIGHT  IN  ENGLAND 


FOREWORD 

The  author  of  this  book  is  one  of  the  best 
known  theatrical  men  in  New  York.  For  ten 
years  he  has  enjoyed  the  confidence  of  his  business 
associates  and  the  respect  of  the  thousands  of  men 
and  women  of  the  stage  who  have  been  in  the 
employ  of  his  firm.  His  word  with  all  of  these  is 
as  good  as  his  bond.  What  he  says  here  he  has 
said  deliberately,  after  long  reflection,  and  with 
the  sole  idea  of  telling  the  truth  that  the  truth  may 
help  those  who  need  to  know  it  most.  Young  men 
and  women  ambitious  to  go  on  the  stage,  to  write 
plays  or  to  associate  themselves  in  some  other 
manner  or  capacity  with  the  theater  will  find 
in  what  he  has  written  the  plain  facts  as  he 
knows  them  —  without  adornment,  exaggeration 
or  excuse. 


202134! 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I  FACING  FACTS i 

II  PEGGY  APPEARS 7 

III  BROADWAY  AS  IT  Is 12 

IV  ON  THE  STAGE 22 

V  THE  PATH  OF  THE  PLAYWRIGHT     ...  32 

VI  SUBMITTING  A  PLAY 42 

VII  TEARS  AND  SMILES 50 

VIII  WITH  THE  PRODUCER 68 

IX  THE  MEN  IN  POWER 77 

X  THE  ADVENTURE  TYPICAL 85 

XI  A  BACKWARD  GLANCE 91 

XII  THE  LAST  ACT 107 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT 
THE  THEATER 

CHAPTER  I 

FACING    FACTS 

I  AM  the  general  manager  of  one  of  the  best- 
known  firms  of  theatrical  producers  in  the  country. 
Ten  years  ago  I  left  my  home  in  a  city  of  the 
Middle  West  to  enter  the  theatrical  business.  I 
did  what  many  a  young  man  before  and  since  has 
done  —  I  stepped  from  the  newspaper  to  the 
theatrical  field.  I  was  young  and  ambitious  and, 
by  degrees,  from  one  position  to  another,  I  fought 
my  way  upward.  I  began  at  seventy-five  dollars 
a  week;  today  I  receive  four  hundred  a  week  and 
I  earn  three  times  what  I  am  paid.  Ten  years  ago 
I  was  the  dramatic  editor  of  a  quiet,  dignified,  in- 
fluential daily  newspaper  of  my  home  city.  It 
was  a  comfortable,  secure  berth,  paying  me  fifty 
dollars  a  week  and  promising,  when  my  days  of 
usefulness  were  at  an  end,  a  fair  pension  provision 
for  my  old  age. 

Perhaps  I  should  have  been  satisfied.     What 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

planted  the  seed  of  discontent  I  do  not  know.  I 
awoke  one  morning  to  find  myself  longing  for 
broader  opportunities  and  common  sense  immedi- 
ately counselled  that  there  was  only  one  other  line 
of  work  for  which  I  was  adapted  that  would  af- 
ford the  broader  opportunities  I  wanted.  It  was 
the  theatrical  business.  I  had  come  in  contact 
with  it  and  with  men  employed  in  it  and  I  knew 
it  about  as  well  as  a  close  observer  could  know  any 
business  in  a  general  way  without  actually  engag- 
ing in  it. 

So,  without  more  ado,  into  the  theatrical  busi- 
ness I  went.  A  manager  of  more  than  national 
prominence  was  in  need  of  a  press  agent  —  I  think 
he  called  it  general  director  of  publicity  —  and 
with  the  exchange  of  some  half-dozen  telegrams, 
his  choice  finally  settled  on  me.  I  resigned  my 
position  with  the  newspaper;  I  closed  my  desk  for 
the  last  time ;  I  bade  old  friends  and  surroundings 
good-by,  and  I  departed. 

I  arrived  in  New  York  and  began  my  work  with 
high  aspirations.  I  knew  the  stage,  or,  to  be  ex- 
act, I  thought  I  knew  the  stage,  and  the  theater  to 
me  was  an  institution  of  art.  I  had  read  Lamb 
and  Lewes  and  Arnold  and  others  that  I  no  longer 
recall,  and  I  had  been  inspired  by  them  with  re- 
spect and  reverence  for  its  purpose  and  its  achieve- 
ment. I  believed  in  the  theater  with  all  my  heart 
and  soul;  I  loved  it.  And  I  entered  upon  my  new 
2 


FACING  FACTS 


field  of  work  with  something  more  and  worthier 
than  mere  increase  of  salary  as  the  propelling  mo- 
tive. I  would  serve  the  theater;  I  would  devote 
my  life,  thenceforth,  to  its  cause.  My  labor 
would  be  for  its  art  and  it  would  be  a  labor  of  love. 

All  this  seems  odd  to  me  now,  but  there  is  no 
exaggeration  in  the  statement.  On  the  contrary, 
I  am  scarcely  doing  full  justice  to  the  faith  and 
feelings  I  entertained  at  the  time.  With  ten 
years  of  experience  back  of  me,  it  is  difficult  to  re- 
call all  the  ardor  and  enthusiasm  of  that  novitiate 
period.  But  I  do  recollect  —  and  memory  paints 
the  picture  vividly  —  the  sober-faced  young  man 
who  went  at  his  first  day's  work  with  the  high  re- 
solve to  be  worthy  of  the  service  to  which  he  had 
dedicated  himself. 

Today,  with  this  decade  behind  me  — "  long  ago 
and  far  away,"  indeed  —  I  reflect  upon  those  ideas 
and  ideals  of  yesterday  and  smile  at  them.  I  am 
forty  years  old  and,  perhaps,  the  illusions  have  de- 
parted only  naturally  with  the  advance  of  the 
years.  I  am  afraid,  though,  that  they  vanished 
too  early  in  my  experience  for  this  to  account  for 
their  disappearance. 

They  were  gone,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  before  I 
had  been  half  a  year  in  New  York.  At  the  end  of 
that  period,  I  had  come  to  a  readjustment  of  ideas 
—  my  ideals  I  had  put  away.  My  idol  was  shat- 
tered; the  respect  and  reverence  I  had  felt  for 
3 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

the  theater  were  dead.  The  sentiment  went  out 
of  my  heart  and  I  bit  my  teeth  together  on  the 
hard  fact  that  I  was  engaged  in  a  crushing,  grind- 
ing, soulless  business  that  made  obeisance  to 
money  and  not  to  art.  Thereafter  I  took  things  as 
I  found  them;  I  entertained  no  more  illusions;  I 
cherished  no  more  sentiments.  I  went  into  the  game 
with  my  jaws  set,  to  play  it  by  the  rules  as  they 
were,  and,  win  or  lose,  to  play  it  to  the  bitter  end. 

In  a  few  more  weeks  my  name  will  be  erased 
from  the  door  of  the  office  that  has  been  mine  for 
five  years.  With  the  beginning  of  a  new  season, 
another  name  will  replace  mine  above  the  title 
"  General  Manager."  I  do  not  know  who  my 
successor  will  be,  but,  here  and  now,  I  wish  him 
God-speed.  My  employers  will  soon  be  in  receipt 
of  my  resignation  and,  unless,  perchance,  their  eyes 
fall  on  this  and  they  recognize  the  writer,  the  resig- 
nation itself  will  be  the  first  intimation  of  my  in- 
tention to  withdraw  from  the  executive  direction 
of  their  affairs. 

I  am  finished,  and  I  return  whence  I  came. 
Not,  to  be  sure,  to  the  critic's  desk  of  ten  years 
ago,  but  back  to  my  old  home  city,  back  to  its  joy 
of  old  friends  and  to  the  delight  of  its  happier, 
more  genuine  life  and  living.  I  retire  with  a 
modest  capital  —  not  much,  but  enough  at  least  to 
insure  independence.  A  few  months  ago,  my  em- 
ployers lost  on  three  unsuccessful  theatrical  ven- 


FACING  FACTS 


tures  in  less  than  sixty  days  a  sum  as  large  as  the 
total  amount  of  my  small  savings,  and  it  would  be 
a  poor  season,  indeed,  when  any  two  of  their 
merely  average  successes  failed  to  return  in  profits 
alone  an  amount  much  greater  than  the  value  of 
all  I  possess.  But  I  am  satisfied. 

And  a  part  of  the  immediate  satisfaction  I  feel 
comes  from  finding  myself  in  a  position  at  last  to 
tell  the  truth  about  the  theater  and  the  theatrical 
business.  The  public,  to  put  the  fact  squarely, 
has  not  had  the  truth,  or,  at  most,  it  has  had  only 
a  little  truth,  possibly  a  background  of  truth, 
but  never  the  plain  truth.  What  it  gets  is  cold- 
creamed,  painted  and  powdered  like  an  actress's 
face  in  make-up.  It  is  fiction.  Perhaps  I  ought 
to  let  it  go  at  this  and  say  no  more,  accepting  it 
as  something  the  public  likes  and  demands  —  else 
there  would  be  less  of  it  published  —  and  some- 
thing it  reads  eagerly  and  apparently  without 
harm.  But  the  harm  is  there  and  I  have  been  so 
placed  that  I  could  see  it  and  estimate  it  and  I 
know  it  for  what  it  is  and  what  it  does.  It  is 
serious  —  more  serious  than  the  public  suspects 
—  and  I  make  only  a  conservative  statement  when 
I  say  that  it  has  brought  ruin  to  hundreds  and 
misery  to  thousands. 

I  do  not  allude,  of  course,  to  the  journalistic 
criticism  of  current  plays  in  which  the  productions 
are  viewed  entirely  upon  the  basis  of  their  intrinsic 
5 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

merit.  I  refer  to  the  superficial,  gilding  comment 
written  about  and  around  the  stage  and  its  stars, 
the  senseless,  truthless,  panegyric  sort  that  con- 
veys wrong  impressions  of  theatrical  life,  gives 
only  its  sunny  side,  stimulates  the  futile  ambitions 
of  stage-struck  Mary  Jones,  draws  Herbert  Smith 
away  from  his  job  at  the  haberdashery  counter  to 
join  the  ranks  of  chorus  men,  and  leads  the  Browns 
of  both  sexes  to  waste  their  time  trying  to  write 
plays. 

The  other  day,  I  sat  with  one  of  the  most 
prominent  critics  in  New  York  City,  a  man  whose 
judgment  is  excellent  and  whose  veracity  and 
honesty  have  never  been  and  never  will  be 
doubted.  I  asked  him  if  he  did  not  think  some 
one  ought  to  tell  the  truth  about  the  theater. 

"  Yes,"  he  said.  "  Every  day  for  fifteen  years 
I  have  encountered  reason  after  reason  why  the 
truth  should  be  told." 

"  Why  not  do  it?  "  I  demanded. 

And  very  frankly  he  replied :     "  I  don't  dare." 

Only  a  few  days  after  I  had  decided  to  retire 
from  the  business,  a  friend  put  the  same  question 
to  me. 

"Why  don't  you  tell  the  truth  about  the 
theater?  "  he  asked. 

"  Some  day,"  I  replied,  "  perhaps  I  shall." 

And  today  I  do  not  wonder  if  I  dare;  I  only 
wonder  if  I  can. 

6 


CHAPTER  II 

PEGGY  APPEARS 

I  HAVE  said  that  I  am  forty.  Those  who  know 
me  probably  think  I  am  fifty.  Ten  years  ago  my 
hair  was  black;  today  it  is  white.  Ten  years  ago 
I  stood  straight  and  held  my  shoulders  square. 
Today  I  stoop  and  I  am  not  particular  whether  my 
shoulders  are  squared  or  rounded.  Ten  years 
ago  my  friends  said  I  had  nerve.  Today  I  have 
nerves.  Ten  years  ago  the  same  friends  said  I 
showed  promise  of  a  good  future  as  a  writer;  to- 
day all  the  writing  I  do  is  to  sign  my  name  and 
whatever  I  have  to  set  down  on  paper  is  dictated 
to  a  stenographer.  All  the  "  knack  "  of  writing 
has  gone  from  me.  It  is  not  easy,  in  other  words, 
considering  mental  and  physical  state  and  habit, 
to  undertake  what  men  better  qualified  than  I  for 
the  work  have  declined  to  do.  But  there  are 
times  when  I  think  a  good  deal  about  the  Joneses 
and  Smiths  and  Browns,  and  then  I  am  inclined  to 
go  on  with  the  task  regardless  of  everything. 

The  whole  thing  was  brought  home  to  me  about 

the  time  I  made  up  my  mind  to  spend  another 

season  in  the  business  and  then  retire.     It  was 

late  one  afternoon  and  I  was  sitting  in  my  office 

7 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

talking  to  a  gentleman  whose  guest  I  was  to  be 
that  evening  at  dinner.  A  note  was  placed  on  my 
desk  and  I  tore  open  the  envelop  to  recognize  at 
a  glance  the  signature  of  my  old  friend,  Ned  Scott. 
Back  where  I  came  from,  Ned  and  I  had  grown 
up  together,  and  a  letter  from  him  meant  some- 
thing more  than  routine. 

This  will  be  presented  to  you,  [it  ran],  by  Dick 
Hall's  daughter,  Margaret.  We  call  her  Peggy. 
Dick  died  a  year  ago  and  Peggy  and  her  mother 
are  compelled  to  support  themselves.  They  have 
looked  to  me  for  advice  and  I  have  done  what- 
ever I  could  to  help  them.  But  Peggy  has  lately 
concluded  that  she  ought  to  go  on  the  stage  and 
that  is  a  matter  concerning  which  I  can't,  of  course, 
advise  her  at  all.  People  who  ought  to  know  tell 
me  she  has  talent,  and  I  shouldn't  be  surprised  if 
she  has.  Dick  had,  you'll  remember.  Anyway, 
Peggy  can  play  the  piano  a  little,  recite  a  bit  and 
sing^a  bit,  all  as  well  as  Dick  himself  could,  and 
she  is  ambitious  and  eager  to  try.  She  has  come 
to  New  York  for  that  purpose  and  I  am  sending 
her  direct  to  you.  If  she  doesn't  succeed,  there 
will  always  be  a  place  in  my  office  here  for  her  and 
she  will  be  welcome  to  return.  I  hope  you'll  do 
what  you  can  to  help  her. 

With  best  regards,  I  am, 

Yours  as  ever, 

SCOTTY." 

I  read  the  letter  in  silence.     Poor  old  Dick! 
He  too  could  "  play  the  piano  a  little  and  sing  a 
8 


PEGGY  APPEARS 


bit."  That  was  his  trouble.  He  was  too  much 
the  "  goodfellow,"  too  willing  all  his  life  to 
"  oblige  "  with  his  little  scattered  talents.  In  busi- 
ness hours,  Dick's  mind  was  on  the  snare  drum; 
and  when  he  was  playing  the  snare  drum  his  mind 
was  on  something  else.  So  it  went;  he  couldn't 
concentrate.  And  now  was  come  his  daughter 
who  could  "  play  the  piano  a  little  and  sing  a  bit," 
and  Fate  and  Scott  had  combined  somehow  to 
direct  her  to  me. 

I  pushed  the  button  and  told  the  office  boy  to 
show  her  in.  She  came  through  the  door  timidly, 
a  girl  of  nineteen  or  twenty.  There  was  some- 
thing about  her  that  was  pathetically  appealing  — 
she  seemed  so  dependent,  so  lonely,  so  bewildered. 
For  half  an  hour  I  talked  to  her  as  I  have  never 
talked  to  anyone  before  or  since.  I  told  her  what 
she  faced,  what  lay  beyond  the  stage  door,  what 
she  must  be  prepared  to  endure.  I  begged  her 
to  go  back  home. 

She  heard  me  in  silence,  tinged  with  that  sug- 
gestion of  twenty's  ill-concealed  contempt  for 
forty's  fears,  that  youth  shows  —  and  tries  not  to. 
She  shook  her  head. 

"  I'll  stay  and  try,"  she  said. 

"  Look  here,"  I  replied,  "  I  knew  your  father. 

He  and  I  were  boys  together.     If  neither  reason 

nor  fact  will  move  you,  just  go  back  because  your 

father's  old  friend  begs  you  to.     Mr.  Scott  tells 

9 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

me  there's  a  place  for  you  in  his  office.  Take  it, 
and  a  few  years  from  now,  you'll  be  mighty  glad 
you  did." 

It  was  useless.  Peggy  Hall  would  have  none 
of  my  counsel.  A  week  later,  she  was  "  singing  a 
bit "  at  the  rehearsals  of  a  musical  comedy  and 
telling  me,  proudly,  her  face  aglow  with  her  pride, 
that  she  had  won  the  place  for  herself  and  suc- 
ceeded without  assistance  from  me.  But  Peggy 
was  wrong.  As  she  stood  on  the  stage  at  the 
Circle  with  a  hundred  other  applicants,  chance 
brought  me  to  the  theater.  Lips  apart,  eyes  big 
and  round  and  cheeks  flushed  with  excitement  and 
hope,  I  saw  her  standing  in  the  line  and,  unob- 
served, I  spoke  to  the  stage  director.  Thus  she 
came  to  a  place  in  the  chorus,  but  I  did  not  tell 
Peggy  so. 

This  was,  as  I  say,  a  year  ago.  Of  Peggy  I 
shall  have  occasion  to  speak  later.  Just  now  I 
must  go  back  to  the  gentleman  waiting  patiently  in 
my  office  while  I  delivered  my  lecture  to  Dick 
Hall's  daughter.  He  was  a  silent  auditor  of  what 
I  said,  and  when  she  was  gone,  he  turned  to  me. 

"  See  here,"  he  asked,  "  were  you  telling  the 
truth  to  that  girl?" 

"  No,"  I  replied,  "  not  half  of  it,  not  a  quarter 
of  it.  I  couldn't.  She'd  never  grasp  it.  Why, 
I'd  never  be  able  to  put  it  in  words  that  she'd 
even  understand." 

10 


PEGGY  APPEARS 


"  Then,"  he  said,  "  somebody  —  surely  some- 
body ought  to  tell  the  truth  about  the  theater." 

"  Meaning  me?  "  I  asked. 

"Why  not?"  he  rejoined. 

And  why  not,  indeed?  Still,  I'm  reminded  of 
the  old  story  of  the  lobster.  One  man,  you  re- 
member, swore  it  was  green;  another  swore  it 
was  red.  Both  were  right,  but  neither  believed 
the  other  and  neither  was  more  than  half  right. 
What  seems  to  be  true  to  one  man  may  seem  to  be 
false  to  another.  It  depends  on  when  and  how 
one  sees  the  lobster  —  green  on  the  cook's  table 
with  seaweed  clutched  in  its  claw  or  red  on  the 
waiter's  tray  with  a  parsley  sprig  to  trim  it.  For 
ten  years  I  have  lived  in  the  life  of  the  theater 
and,  I  might  say,  I  know  it  red  and  I  know  it 
green,  and  I  know  it  is  both. 


ii 


CHAPTER  III 

BROADWAY  AS  IT  IS 

THE  producer  with  whom  I  began  my  career  in 
the  theatrical  business  was  then  and  still  is  one  of 
the  foremost  managers  in  the  country.  I  shall 
call  him  Bingo  —  near  enough  to  his  real  name 
to  suggest  it  and,  if  names  have  any  descriptive 
significance  at  all,  certainly  characteristic  of  the 
man  himself.  Bingo  was  known  to  be  changeable 
in  opinion  and  plan,  abrupt  and  rough  in  manner 
and  language  and  not  by  any  means  as  temperate 
as  his  own  good  demanded.  By  sheer  force  of 
industry,  assisted  now  and  then  by  surprisingly 
good  judgment  which  was  generally  called  "  Bingo 
luck,"  my  employer  had  risen  to  an  enviable  posi- 
tion in  the  theatrical  world.  Behind  him,  extend- 
ing back  to  his  orphaned  boyhood  days,  lay  a  pic- 
turesque trail  of  obstacles  overcome,  opposition 
conquered  and  success  retrieved  from  failure. 
Defeat  was  something  that  Bingo's  dauntless 
spirit  never  recognized  and,  in  his  eventful  career 
he  had  made  and  lost  a  dozen  fortunes  and, 
though  he  is  now  on  the  shady  side  of  fifty,  I 

12 


BROADWAY  AS  IT  IS 


should  not  be  surprised  if  he  lost  and  made  an- 
other fortune  or  two  before  he  retires. 

I  no  sooner  entered  Bingo's  office  and  reported 
ready  for  work  than  I  sat  down  to  a  desk  piled 
high  with  matters  demanding  immediate  attention 
and  from  that  day  to  this,  I  have  never  seen  the 
bottom  of  the  pile  nor  the  top  of  my  desk.  Since 
then  I  have  changed  from  one  employer  to  an- 
other half  a  dozen  times,  always  for  the  better 
and  always  with  the  idea  that  a  position  a  little 
higher  up  could  be  had  if  I  went  after  it  hard 
enough.  Now  for  five  years  I  have  been  at  the 
top,  with  nothing  higher  in  sight.  With  each 
change,  the  work  increased,  the  pile  on  the  desk 
grew  taller  and  the  top  of  the  desk  became  more 
remote.  The  salary  steadily  advanced,  of 
course,  but,  as  I  look  back  over  the  period,  I  still 
suspect  that  I  have  paid  too  much  —  and  far  too 
much  —  for  my  whistle. 

I  don't  believe  I  could  have  entered  the  thea- 
trical business,  despite  the  adverse  conditions  pe- 
culiar to  his  office,  under  better  direction  than 
that  of  Bingo.  While  he  knew  very  well  that  I 
came  to  him  without  any  previous  experience,  ap- 
parently he  never  gave  this  fact  the  slightest  con- 
sideration. Others  might  have  assumed  that  I 
knew  nothing  and  needed  to  be  taught  every- 
thing; Bingo  assumed  that  I  knew  everything  and 
needed  to  be  taught  nothing.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
13 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

in  spite  of  my  association  with  the  playhouse  as  a 
critic,  of  the  commonest  affairs  of  its  business  side 
I  was  densely  ignorant,  but  I  felt  instinctively 
that  he  was  testing  my  patience,  my  endurance  and 
my  ability. 

They  were  heart-breaking  days,  those  first  five 
or  six  weeks.  And  to  this  hour  so  well  do  I  re- 
call the  suffering  I  went  through  then  that  even 
time  and  Broadway  working  together  have  not 
entirely  dulled  my  sympathy  for  others  who  un- 
dergo a  similar  experience.  My  work  was  made 
the  harder  because  of  my  ignorance  and  my  anx- 
iety was  always  the  greater  because  I  found  my 
work  so  hard. 

Only  once  during  this  period  did  I  ever  send 
out  a  call  for  assistance  and  then,  fortunately  for 
the  sake  of  my  record  at  least,  I  never  voiced  it. 
I  telephoned  to  another  press  agent,  a  man  for 
whom  I  had  performed  more  than  one  friendly 
service  and  who  was  under  some  obligation  to  me 
—  but  his  greeting  over  the  wire  was  so  emphati- 
cally frigid  and  forbidding  that  my  question  never 
left  my  lips. 

Then  and  there,  I  learned  one  of  my  first 
lessons  —  that  theatrical  Broadway  is  without 
heart  or  soul.  There  are  exceptions,  of  course, 
but  too  few  in  number  to  affect  the  general  fact, 
and  while  Broadway  can  be  generous  on  occasion, 
its  generosity  nine  times  out  of  ten  is  more  hys- 


BROADWAY  AS  IT  IS 


terical  than  genuine.  Its  sympathy,  too,  is  largely 
'simulated  and  its  expressions  of  interest,  what- 
ever their  nature,  are  without  sincerity.  Ab- 
sorbed in  its  own  affairs,  selfish,  self-centered  and 
self-conscious,  it  exhibits  some  of  its  very  best 
play-acting  when  it  pretends  to  be  otherwise. 

Every  year  there  is  a  small  army  of  men  and 
women  who  must  learn  this  as  I  learned  it  in  those 
weeks  in  Bingo's  office  —  through  experience. 
And  to  few  of  them  indeed  will  the  experience  be 
any  kinder  or  gentler  than  it  was  to  me.  If 
others  who  have  come  to  New  York  as  I  came  — 
making  not  only  an  abrupt  departure  from  asso- 
ciations both  familiar  and  friendly  but  engaging 
at  the  same  time  in  a  new  business  —  were  to  add 
their  confessions  to  mine,  I  am  sure  they  would 
only  reiterate  what  I  have  said. 

For  the  women,  though,  rather  than  for  the 
men,  and  for  the  young  women  particularly,  who 
come  as  strangers  to  a  strange  city  and  often  to  a 
strange  business,  is  the  ordeal  most  trying  and 
the  experience  bitterest. 

They  arrive  as  Peggy  arrived,  unprepared,  and 
Peggy  in  a  good  many  respects  is  typical,  but  she 
came  possessed  of  one  advantage  at  least  that  few 
enjoy  —  she  had  a  friend  at  court.  The  other 
girls  whose  feet  tread  the  same  path  must  depend 
upon  themselves.  They  come  no  one  knows 
whence  and  they  go  no  one  knows  whither.  But 
15 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

in  passing,  whether  the  transit  is  long  or  short, 
girlish  innocence  and  sweetness  vanish  from  their 
faces  and  in  their  place  comes  a  hardness  that 
only  one  other  kind  of  experience  that  I  know  of 
will  set  on  the  countenance  of  a  young  woman. 

The  beginning  of  each  theatrical  season  brings 
its  new  army  of  these  girls  to  Broadway  and  by 
far  the  greater  part  are  without  the  slightest 
knowledge  of  the  conditions  they  will  encounter. 
Hope  burns  high  in  their  breasts  and  the  optimism 
of  youth  minimizes  risks  and  hazards,  magnifies 
opportunity  and  construes  chance  into  certainty. 
They  are  always  confident,  and  the  last  thing,  ap- 
parently, that  they  ever  dream  they  may  require 
is  one  of  the  things  they  are  most  likely,  sooner 
or  later,  to  need  and  to  need  desperately  —  a  re- 
turn ticket  home. 

Only  a  few  have  forethought  enough  to  equip 
themselves  with  this  simple  means  of  insurance 
against  the  unhappy  hour  when  all  other  resources 
are  exhausted.  The  others,  only  too  often  long- 
ing for  it  in  vain,  their  little  capital  fast  dwindling 
away,  are  soon  numbered  among  those  pathetic 
applicants  who  besiege  the  offices  of  managers  and 
agents,  forcing  mirthless  smiles  through  their 
tears,  suffering  as  no  one  can  fancy  and  living  no 
one  knows  how. 

A  recital  of  the  discouraging  facts,  however,  is 
about  as  futile  as  it  is  thankless.  It  is  heeded  by 
16 


BROADWAY  AS  IT  IS 


others  no  more  than  it  was  heeded  by  Peggy. 
Still,  every  girl  who  comes  to  New  York  with  the 
definite  intention  of  going  on  the  stage  ought  to 
come  with  her  eyes  open.  Whether  it  dissuades 
her  or  not,  she  ought  to  know  that  theatrical 
Broadway  knows  chastity  only  to  prey  upon  it  if 
it  can  and  that  the  atmosphere  of  the  stage  is  in- 
sidiously and  persistently  demoralizing.  It  takes 
more  than  mere  strength  of  resolution  to  with- 
stand the  former;  it  takes  vigilance,  shrewdness, 
even  diplomacy.  And  to  resist  the  influence  of 
the  latter  it  takes  all  these  and  more  besides  —  a 
sophistication  that  can  detect  sophistry  in  its  most 
plausible  form,  unmask  it  and  reject  it  and  a  will 
of  adamant  to  resist  insistent  temptation.  Inno- 
cence that  is  without  knowledge  can  fight  only  a 
losing  fight  against  Broadway;  against  the  other, 
innocence  even  when  armed  with  knowledge  has 
a  poor  weapon  until  it  learns  when  and  how  and 
whom  to  fight.  And  by  that  time  the  fight  is 
often  useless  —  there  is  nothing  left  to  fight  for. 

A  statement  like  this  is  likely  to  meet  with  the 
charge  that  the  maker  of  it  is  "  preaching." 
Broadway  hates  this  kind  of  "  preaching  "  and 
hates  the  "  preacher  "  and  a  person  does  not  live 
a  year  on  Broadway  until  he  resents  being  called 
a  "  preacher."  But  this  is  not  "  preaching."  It 
is  a  plain  statement  of  fact.  I  am  not  moraliz- 
ing; I  am  no  reformer.  I  am  simply  telling  the 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

truth.  Broadway  is  bad,  but  bad  as  it  is,  the  stage 
is  worse.  This  is  true,  of  course,  provided  so- 
ciety's accepted  code  of  morals  is  right  and  the 
stage's  defiance  of  the  code  is  wrong.  I  defend 
neither  and  attack  neither.  They  are  at  opposite 
extremes,  and  if  one  is  good  the  other  is  bad,  but 
which  is  which  I  am  not  presuming  to  say.  I  am 
only  describing  my  lobster. 

It  is  said  by  way  of  excuse  for  the  number  of 
players'  scandals,  intrigues  and  divorces  exposed 
in  the  press  that,  being  in  the  public  eye,  their  af- 
fairs of  this  sort  are  unduly  exploited  —  that  they 
are  not,  in  fact,  greater  in  number  or  worse  in 
character  than  similar  affairs  of  others  in  other 
walks  of  life  but  are  only  made  to  seem  so  through 
the  unfortunate  but  unavoidable  publicity.  This 
is  part  of  the  truth  but  not  all  of  it.  The  fact  is, 
we  hear  so  much  about  the  scandals  mainly  be- 
cause there  are  so  many  scandals  to  hear  about  and 
even  then  what  we  hear  is  as  nothing  compared  to 
what  we  might  hear.  The  stage  —  or  the  pro- 
fession, to  be  exact  —  is  honeycombed  with  what 
society,  rightly  or  wrongly,  calls  immorality. 
And  that,  to  be  candid,  is  calling  it  by  as  mild  a 
term  as  possible. 

But  to  return  to  the  girls  who  come  to  New 
York  to  go  on  the  stage.  In  their  own  little 
circles  in  their  own  homes  these  girls  are  gener- 
ally the  most  attractive,  the  brightest,  the  most 
18 


BROADWAY  AS  IT  IS 


vivacious;  they  can  sing,  dance,  play  the  piano 
better  than  their  companions.  And,  generally, 
they  are  the  most  popular.  Their  leadership  is 
natural;  it  is  won  by  virtue  of  their  abilities  and 
their  talents.  But,  when  the  stage-struck  days 
come  —  and  come  they  do  —  they  forget  that 
New  York  is  not  home  and  they  overlook  the 
very  important  fact  that  when  they  arrive  on 
Broadway  they  will  be  thrown  not  with  girls  they 
led  at  home,  but  with  girls  who  were  also  the 
leaders  back  in  their  own  various  communities. 

They  cease  to  shine  then  by  contrast  and  the 
very  things  that  formerly  distinguished  them  are 
possessed  in  common  by  the  thousands  of  girls 
who  are  seeking  precisely  what  they  are  seeking. 
It  might  not  be  so  bad  even  then  for  all  the  Peggys 
and  her  sisters,  the  Mary  Janes  and  the  Elizabeth 
Anns  who  make  perennial  pilgrimage  to  New 
York  if  producing  managers  made  intelligence 
and  mental  training  tests  for  fitness.  But  they 
don't  and  they  won't  and  it  is  doubtful  if  they 
could  if  they  would.  Above  everything  else  they 
demand  good  looks,  good  figure,  good  propor- 
tions and  that  mysterious,  indefinable  something 
that  is  called  "  personality."  These  the  manager 
seeks  first,  and  what  is  meant  by  them,  save,  per- 
haps, the  last,  it  is  needless  to  explain.  And  in 
choosing  first  on  this  basis  he  is  merely  giving  the 
theater-going  public  what  the  theater-going  public 
19 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

wants;  he  is  interpreting  its  demand  and  supply- 
ing it. 

As  for  "  personality,"  I  don't  believe  it  has 
ever  been  adequately  defined  —  probably  it  never 
will  be.  It  differs  in  different  persons,  but  its  ef- 
fect is  practically  the  same.  It  is  a  kind  of  in- 
tangible, elusive  radium  emanation  that  defies 
analysis,  but  it  can  do  more  to  convert  a  sow's 
ear  into  a  silk  purse  than  anything  else  in  the 
world.  Under  its  magic  spell,  downright  ugli- 
ness may  seem  to  be  beauty  and  stupidity  may 
easily  enough  be  mistaken  for  brilliance.  It  is 
the  quality  that  every  successful  actor  and  actress 
possesses  and  without  which  no  actor  and  no 
actress  rises  to  any  appreciable  height  in  the  pro- 
fession. It  flashes  across  the  footlights  more  ef- 
fectively than  beauty,  ability  and  experience  com- 
bined and,  while  the  spectator  himself,  perhaps,  is 
not  aware  of  the  fact,  he  applauds  it  more  than 
he  applauds  anything  else. 

The  Peggys  and  Mary  Janes  have  personality, 
but,  except  in  rare  instances  —  in  the  case  of  one 
in  a  thousand  —  they  haven't  enough,  unfor- 
tunately, to  do  them  any  good.  They  have  only 
enough  to  do  them  harm.  It  is  like  a  little  knowl- 
edge—  a  dangerous  thing.  It  attracts  and  it  is 
attracted  and  it  is  thrown  into  an  environment 
where  the  restraint  of  convention  is  disregarded 
and  where  the  very  first  thing  a  woman  who 
20 


BROADWAY  AS  IT  IS 


enters  it  abandons  is  the  thing  that  protects  her 
most  —  her  modesty.  The  exigencies  of  the 
profession  itself  frequently  force  her  to  lay  this 
aside. 


21 


CHAPTER  IV 

ON  THE   STAGE 

EXPERIENCE  has  taught  me  that  the  girl  who 
succeeds  in  the  theatrical  profession  to  no  greater 
extent  than  to  remain  in  it  in  the  capacity  of 
member  of  the  chorus  or  singer  or  player  of  a 
small  and  unimportant  part  must  have  the  quali- 
ties I  have  named  —  good  looks,  good  figure, 
good  proportions  and  personality.  In  addition, 
she  must  have  Youth  —  or  the  appearance  of  it 
—  strength,  energy,  vivacity  and  almost  perfect 
health. 

"  What  most  impresses  you  about  these  girls?  " 
I  once  asked  an  acquaintance  who  sat  with  me 
during  the  final  rehearsals  of  a  musical  comedy 
chorus. 

My  companion  thought  a  moment. 

"  Why,"  said  he,  "  it's  their  everlasting  super- 
abundance of  physical  energy." 

The  girls  in  question  had  rehearsed  for  a  week 
nearly  twelve  hours  every  day  —  dancing,  sing- 
ing, marching,  counter-marching,  hopping,  jump- 
ing, leaping.  On  this  particular  day  they  had 
been  at  it  more  than  fourteen  hours  when  we 
22 


ON  THE  STAGE 


dropped  in  at  the  rehearsal.  Yet,  even  when 
they  might  have  rested,  they  didn't ;  they  were  on 
their  feet,  tireless,  teaching  each  other  the  latest 
Tango  steps  or  the  newest  evolutions  of  the  Hesi- 
tation Waltz. 

Put  two  and  two  together.  Add  to  the 
11  superabundance  of  physical  energy "  vivacity, 
youth,  freedom  from  convention's  restraint  and 
take  this  combination  plus  conditions  that  make 
for  familiarity,  subtract  modesty  and  add  tempta- 
tion, unlimited  opportunity  and  youth's  inevitable 
desire  for  a  "  good  time  "  and  see  what  the  result 
is.  You  don't  need  algebra  to  work  it  out. 
Then  remember,  too,  that  indiscretions,  to  use  the 
mildest  term  possible,  and  worse  than  indiscre- 
tions, are  not  punished  in  professional  circles  by 
ostracism.  If  they  were,  precious  few  players 
today,  men  or  women,  would  be  on  speaking 
terms  with  each  other.  Moral  laxity  is  con- 
doned; it  is  even  sanctioned.  No  one  cares  what 
anyone  else  does  and  glass  houses  are  too  com- 
mon for  any  indulgence  in  stone-throwing. 

41 1  was  in  a  certain  producer's  office  several 
years  ago,"  said  a  New  York  dramatic  critic  to 
me  the  other  day,  "  and  he  introduced  me  to  a 
young  woman  who,  since  then,  has  attained  con- 
siderable importance  on  the  stage.  *  She's  the 
most  unsophisticated  girl  I've  seen  in  a  long  time,' 
said  the  manager  and  there  was  something  in  his 
23 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

way  of  saying  it  that  meant  more  than  the  words 
themselves  conveyed.  A  moment  later,  I  was 
left  alone  with  the  girl. 

"  *  Mr.  Blank  is  the  finest  man  I  ever  met,'  she 
confided.  4  And  his  attitude  toward  me  certainly 
shows  that  managers  aren't  what  they're  said  to 
be.  Why,  he  says  he'll  be  a  father  to  me  I '  " 

"  Unsophisticated,  indeed!  '  See  here,'  I  said, 
'  Just  take  a  tip  from  me.  Beware  of  the  man- 
ager who  is  going  to  be  a  father  or  a  brother  or 
an  uncle  or  a  cousin  or  anything  else  of  the  kind. 
Accept  no  favors ;  get  where  you  can  by  yourself 
and  on  your  own  resources.' 

"  Two  or  three  years  later,  after  this  girl  had 
scored  a  big  success  that  practically  made  her  be- 
tween sunset  and  sunrise,  I  met  her  at  a  dinner 
party.  I'd  forgotten  about  the  advice  I'd  given 
her  and  I  doubt  if  I  ever  would  have  thought 
about  it  again  if  she  hadn't  come  to  me  and  re- 
minded me  of  it. 

' '  I  never  forgot  what  you  said  that  day  in 
Blank's  office,'  she  said,  recalling  the  incident, 
'  and  I've  acted  on  it  ever  since.' 

"  '  Well,'  said  I,  '  did  Blank  engage  you?  ' 
11 '  No,'  she  laughed,  '  he  didn't! '  " 
This  suggests  another  indictment  to  be  brought 
against  the  conventional  matter  that  is  usually 
written  about  the  stage  and  its  players.     The 
writers  of  this  light,  glittery,  superficial  stuff  gen- 
24 


ON  THE  STAGE 


erally  confine  themselves  to  the  exploitation  of 
men  and  women  who  have  achieved  a  fair  degree 
of  success.  They  say  absolutely  nothing  about 
the  thousands  who  have  failed.  The  reader, 
therefore,  is  led  to  believe  that  success  is  general, 
that  it  is  far  more  common  than  it  is  or  can  be  or 
ever  will  be,  and  that  it  comes  without  effort, 
without  labor,  without  sacrifice.  Nothing  could 
be  further  from  the  truth.  Even  a  very  slight 
amount  of  success  is  purchased  at  a  tremendous 
cost  and,  oftentimes,  it  proves  far  less  profitable 
after  it  is  gained  than  the  public  has  been  led  to 
believe. 

Employment  is  precarious  and  engagements 
are  indefinite.  So  when  it  is  said,  or  whispered 
about  knowingly,  that  this  actor  or  that  actress  re- 
ceives $200  or  $400  a  week,  the  sum  seems  large 
—  beautifully  large.  But  I  know  a  score  of 
actors  and  actresses  who  command  this  salary 
and  who  have  drawn  it  in  the  last  six  months  only 
twice  —  the  rest  of  the  time  they  were  idle  or  re- 
hearsing. It's  one  thing  to  be  down  on  the  pro- 
ducer's list  as  a  player  receiving  $200  a  week  and 
quite  another  thing  to  be  getting  it.  Managers 
are  perfectly  willing  to  pay  it,  to  be  sure,  if  they 
have  to  and  if  their  production  is  a  success.  But 
if  the  production  is  a  failure,  it  is  withdrawn  and 
the  player  is  out  of  employment.  Another  en- 
gagment,  with  more  dreary  rehearsing,  may  fol- 
25 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

low  immediately  or  not  for  half  a  season  or,  pos- 
sibly, not  until  a  new  season  is  begun. 

The  government,  in  short,  is  not  going  to  fill 
its  coffers  with  income  tax  paid  by  actors  and 
actresses.  So,  when  Mary  Jane  and  Elizabeth 
Ann  see  pictures  of  Miss  Footlight's  summer 
home  and  more  pictures  of  her  Riverside  Drive 
apartment  and  read  details  of  the  routine  of  her 
life  with  maids  and  butlers  and  chauffeurs  at  her 
command,  let  them  do  a  little  thinking.  Pur- 
veyors of  this  tinselled  literature  very  likely  know 
full  well  that  Miss  Footlight  has  other  means  of 
support  besides  acting  —  they  know  it,  but  they 
ignore  it. 

Girls  in  the  chorus  receive  about  fifteen  dollars 
a  week  in  New  York  —  some,  here  and  there,  a 
little  more  perhaps.  On  the  road,  or  out  of 
town,  their  salary  is  increased  to  eighteen.  If 
this  weekly  wage  were  received  regularly,  every 
week  in  the  year,  it  might  be  worth  considering. 
But,  unfortunately,  it  is  not.  Nothing  at  all  is 
paid  during  rehearsals,  and  rehearsals,  fre- 
quently, last  for  five  or  six  weeks  and  even  longer. 
I  know  one  company  that  recently  rehearsed  nine 
weeks  and  played  two.  The  chorus  girls  re- 
ceived two  weeks'  salary,  thirty  dollars  —  not  a 
very  large  sum,  it  must  be  admitted,  with  which 
to  pay  for  board  and  lodging  and  clothing,  to  say 
nothing  of  other  necessary  expenses,  for  eleven 
26 


ON  THE  STAGE 


weeks.  And  some  of  the  girls  who  appeared  in 
this  short-lived  production  were  without  employ- 
ment for  two  months  following  its  withdrawal. 
If  you  are  eager  to  go  on  the  stage  and  are  per- 
fectly willing  to  begin  in  the  lowly  capacity  of 
"  extra  "  woman  or  chorus  girl,  by  way  of  con- 
vincing yourself  that  the  life  is  all  you  believe  it 
to  be,  try  living  nineteen  weeks  on  thirty  dollars. 
But,  you  say,  you  have  talent  and  ability  and 
managers  are  always  looking  for  these.  You  are 
wrong.  That  is  merely  another  illusion  that  the 
false  literature  fosters.  It  may  be  true  that  man- 
agers think  they  are  looking  for  them  but  I  doubt 
whether  they  ever  succeed  in  fooling  themselves 
to  the  extent  of  really  believing  it.  When  players 
have  scored  successes  in  various  roles,  then  it  is 
quite  true,  managers  want  them.  Seeing  is  be- 
lieving. But  managers  are  not  discovering 
talent;  talent  is  discovering  itself.  If  you  were 
an  unknown  Mrs.  Fiske,  your  only  chance  to 
demonstrate  it  would  come  to  you  by  accident. 
Untried  is  unknown  to  the  theatrical  producer  and 
he  is  making  no  experiments.  You  may  be  pos- 
sessed of  all  the  ability  necessary  to  make  you  a 
great  star  in  a  few  seasons,  but,  to  do  anything  or 
to  get  anywhere  in  the  profession,  you  will  first 
have  to  be  lucky  enough  to  get  a  small  part  that 
will  enable  you  to  attract  attention  to  your  acting 
and  thus  to  your  ability.  But,  when  choice  falls 
27 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

between  a  girl  with  experience  and  without  talent, 
and  a  girl  with  talent  and  without  experience,  the 
former  wins. 

I  have  heard  no  less  a  manager  than  Lee  Shu- 
bert  bemoan  the  fact  that  he  could  not  find  the 
players  he  wanted.  William  A.  Brady  has  sadly 
shaken  his  head  over  the  prospect  and  declared 
again  and  again  in  my  presence  that  there  are  no 
more  competent  actors  and  actresses.  At  the 
time  Shubert  was  bewailing  the  paucity  of  players, 
there  were  fifty  young  men  and  women  in  his  re- 
ception room,  all  asking  nothing  more  than  an  op- 
portunity to  show  what  they  could  do.  And 
Brady,  at  the  same  time,  was  deliberately  remain- 
ing away  from  his  office  in  order  to  avoid  a  long 
line  of  ambitious  applicants.  If  any  of  these  pa- 
tient waiters  had  come  with  a  letter  of  introduc- 
tion from  some  man  or  woman  of  influence  an 
audience  might  have  been  granted,  but  even  that 
is  by  no  means  a  certainty. 

What  I  have  said  of  these  two  producers  is 
true  of  the  others  as  well.  There  is  no  open 
front  door  into  their  presence.  The  applicant 
must  tarry  by  the  way  until  he  or  she  has  culti- 
vated acquaintances  who  can  shunt  them  in  by  the 
back-door  entrances. 

I  remember  not  long  ago  when  a  prominent 
producer  —  Lee  Shubert,  to  be  explicit  —  was 
sighing  for  "acts"  for  a  vaudeville  program. 
28 


ON  THE  STAGE 


"  I  can't  find  them,"  he  moaned.  Two  days  later, 
I  happened  to  be  out  of  town,  and  my  attention 
was  drawn  by  a  member  of  one  of  our  companies 
to  a  young  woman  among  the  "  extras."  She  was 
a  dancer,  and  one  of  unusual  ability  and  training. 
Immediately  my  mind  reverted  to  the  producer 
who  was  in  need  of  just  such  a  specialty.  In- 
deed, he  had  particularly  mentioned  his  desire  for 
a  dancer  of  precisely  this  girl's  class. 

I  gave  her  a  letter  of  introduction,  not  only 
to  the  producer,  but  to  two  or  three  of  his  impor- 
tant lieutenants.  Several  weeks  later,  the  girl 
came  to  see  me.  For  more  than  a  fortnight  she 
had  called  almost  daily  at  the  producer's  office 
but,  despite  her  hours  of  waiting,  she  had  never 
been  able  to  get  beyond  the  secretarial  guardian 
at  the  threshold  of  the  Shubert  office. 

This  is  not  an  exceptional  instance  but  a  typical 
case.  This  girl,  ready  to  "  go  on  "  at  a  moment's 
notice,  possessed  of  youth,  ambition,  attractive 
features,  good  figure  and  a  charming  personality, 
cannot  gain  even  an  opportunity  to  display  her 
wares.  She  must  remain  hidden  in  a  chorus  until, 
if  she  is  lucky,  she  can  cultivate  influences  that 
will  obtain  for  her  what  her  talent  cannot  get  by 
'itself.  And  in  cultivating  these  influences,  which 
are  not  in  the  habit  of  doing  something  or  giving 
something  for  nothing,  in  most  instances,  she 
pays  with  the  only  sort  of  pay  they  want  or  will 
29 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

accept  or  that  she  has  to  give.  This  is  frank.  It 
is  not  pleasant  and  it  will  not  be  found  in  those 
alluring  and  deceptive  articles  that  Mary  Jane 
and  Elizabeth  Ann  read  and  believe  and  build 
their  dreams  on,  but  it  is  fact. 

The  morals  of  individuals  are  no  affair  of  mine 
and,  to  be  candid,  I  have  been  in  the  theatrical 
business  so  long  that  I  personally  don't  care  a  rap 
what  anybody  does  or  how  or  why  they  do  it. 
The  atmosphere  itself  begets  this  sort  of  indif- 
ference and  it  works  its  way,  somehow,  into  one's 
system,  gradually,  insidiously,  but  thoroughly,  like 
a  habit-forming  drug.  The  dose  of  it  that  sickens 
today  is  tomorrow's  necessity.  Behind  the  cur- 
tain, the  familiarity,  the  innuendo,  the  suggestion 
that  shock  the  novice  tonight  go  unheeded  tomor- 
row night  and  so  on,  night  by  night,  week  by 
week,  until  the  time  comes  when  old  standards  no 
longer  prevail,  when  nothing  shocks  and  nothing 
seems  improper  or  wrong  or  immoral.  And,  for 
all  I  know,  nothing  is.  One  can  hope  so,  at  least. 

The  girl  who  wants  to  go  on  the  stage  ought 
to  know  this,  whether  it  deters  her  or  not.  Igno- 
rance on  her  part  will  not  help  her  any  and  it  cer- 
tainly will  afford  her  no  protection.  I  venture  to 
say  that  Peggy  Hall,  in  her  first  week  at  the 
Circle,  suffered  more  shocks  than  in  all  the  pre- 
vious years  of  her  life  put  together.  But  that 
was  bound  to  occur,  for  I  have  never  yet  seen  the 
30 


ON  THE  STAGE 


chorus  —  and  I  have  seen  a  good  many  —  in 
which  there  was  not  at  least  two  or  three  girls 
who  were  coarse  and  vulgar  beyond  description. 
Even  a  drunken  sailor  would  be  astonished  at 
their  command  of  indecent  language,  and  as  for 
their  morals  —  God  help  them  —  they  appar- 
ently never  had  any.  Their  influence,  however, 
is  not  half  so  bad  for  the  novice  as  that  of  the 
purring  little  cat  who  is  seemingly  all  virtue  and 
gentleness  and  modesty,  but  whose  sophistica- 
tion at  twenty  is  not  surpassed  by  that  of  the  fifty- 
year-old  rounder  in  whose  company  she  dines 
after  the  performance. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  PATH   OF  THE   PLAYWRIGHT 

THERE  was  one  thing  about  Peggy  Hall  that 
was  in  the  nature  of  a  pleasing  surprise.  It  was 
a  novelty.  She  never  tried  to  make  capital  out 
of  the  circumstances  that  had  brought  her  to  my 
office.  She  never  tried  to  make  use  of  my  posi- 
tion. She  stood  squarely  on  her  own  feet.  She 
had  delivered  her  letter  of  introduction,  had 
placed  herself  in  a  way  under  my  guardianship, 
but  she  had  gone  forth  then  to  do  for  herself, 
to  win  on  her  own  merit  and  it  never  occurred  to 
her,  I  am  sure,  that  my  influence  was  in  any  way 
responsible  for  her  first  employment.  Nor  did  I 
enlighten  her.  I  admired  her  pluck  and  inde- 
pendence for  I  know  only  too  well  the  tendency  of 
all  of  Broadway  to  make  the  most  out  of  circum- 
stances and  wrest  every  advantage  possible  out  of 
an  influential  friendship. 

It  is  the  habit  of  Broadway  to  presume  on  ac- 
quaintance and  so  often  have  I  seen  friendship 
abused  through  attempts  to  convert  it  into  capital, 
that  I  have  made  it  a  rule  to  be  especially  guarded 
in  the  matter  of  meeting  players  except  on  a  busi- 
32 


THE  PATH  OF  THE  PLAYWRIGHT 

ness  basis.  It  is  mighty  hard  to  refuse  employ- 
ment to  anyone  in  need  of  it,  but  it  is  a  great  deal 
harder  to  refuse  it  to  an  old  friend  when  every  sign 
proclaims  his  necessity.  Many  a  time,  a  slight 
friendship,  made  in  a  quarter  where  all  seemed 
snug  and  safe,  has  turned  out  to  have  unforeseen 
embarrassments. 

No  one  can  tell,  for  instance,  when  an  appar- 
ently sane  and  level-headed  man,  who  talks  busi- 
ness with  you  sensibly  and  who  proves  to  be  a 
person  worth  knowing,  will  go  stark,  raving  mad 
and  begin  to  write  a  play.  Indeed,  it  sometimes 
seems,  everybody  begins.  Fortunately,  only 
about  ten  thousand  a  year  finish.  Most  of  these 
undertake  the  writing  of  a  play  after  seeing  some 
good  play  performed  —  for  seeing  a  good  play, 
for  some  strange  reason,  immediately  inspires 
playwriting.  It  has  the  effect  of  making  play- 
writing  seem  easy.  This  is  due,  no  doubt,  to  the 
fact  that  it  moves  along  gracefully  from  first  act 
to  last  and  is  simple,  direct  and  logical  with  a  cer- 
tain inevitableness  about  its  sequence  of  scenes  and 
incidents. 

"  Why,"  thinks  the  spectator,  "  I  could  do  that 
myself."  But  he  forgets  that  the  very  qualities 
which  make  the  task  of  playwriting  seem  easy  are 
the  most  difficult  to  supply.  Nor  dees  he  realize 
that  even  if  he  succeeds  in  writing  a  play  it  is  far 
from  likely  that  he  will  ever  see  it  produced.  For 

33 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

there  is  no  product  of  the  human  brain  harder  to 
market  than  the  manuscript  of  a  play.  Pro- 
ducers pretend  to  be  in  a  feverish  quest  for  ma- 
terial but  that  is  nothing  more  than  a  pose.  The 
fact  is,  the  offices  of  American  producers  are  shel- 
tering hundreds  of  unsolicited  manuscripts  that 
never  have  been  read  and  never  will  be  read.  In 
Bingo's  office  when  I  first  went  to  work  for  him, 
there  was  a  pile  of  manuscripts  that  could  not  have 
contained  less  than  five  hundred  plays.  The 
other  day  I  visited  Bingo  and,  in  the  same  old  of- 
fice, in  the  same  old  corner,  was  the  same  old  pile, 
and  I  should  not  be  surprised  to  learn  that  the 
pile  contained  some  of  the  same  old  manuscripts. 
This  is  true  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  of  every 
producing  office  in  New  York  City. 

Algernon  Smith,  reading  the  apparently  sin- 
cere effusion  of  Bingo's  press  agent,  in  which 
Bingo  is  made  to  say  that  he  is  always  eager  to 
have  'scripts  sent  to  him,  that  he  reads  them  care- 
fully and  thoroughly,  rushes  to  the  Greentown 
postoffice  and  hopefully  forwards  to  Bingo's 
headquarters  the  latest  product  of  his  pen. 
Bingo's  secretary  signs  the  registered  package  re- 
ceipt and,  two  or  three  months  later,  in  answer  to 
a  demand  from  Algernon  for  some  verdict  on  his 
'script,  the  same  employe  wearily  picks  Algernon's 
play  from  the  dusty  pile,  where  it  has  reposed  un- 
disturbed from  the  moment  of  its  receipt,  and 
34 


THE  PATH  OF  THE  PLAYWRIGHT 

with  a  polite  note  of  rejection  —  signed  by 
Bingo's  name  but  which  Bingo  never  sees  —  re- 
turns it  to  its  owner. 

It  may  happen  —  and  more  than  once  it  has 
happened  —  that  Algernon  has  submitted  an  ex- 
ceedingly valuable  property  for  Bingo's  inspec- 
tion. But,  a  year  or  two  later,  when,  per- 
haps the  play  is  running  on  Broadway  and  "  turn- 
ing 'em  away,"  Bingo  will  be  surprised  to  read 
some  morning  that  the  'script  had  been  in  his 
hands  and  by  him  rejected.  To  deny  this  is  to 
confess  that  he  never  read  it,  and  Bingo  cannot  af- 
ford to  do  that.  He  remains  silent,  therefore, 
though  he  smarts  under  the  charge  that  his  judg- 
ment was  bad. 

The  producer  lives  to  produce  and  he  produces 
to  live.  His  indifference  to  the  possibilities  of 
'scripts  is  therefore  all  the  more  difficult  to  under- 
stand. It  is  true,  of  course,  that  some  producers 
employ  play-readers,  but  their  reading  is  more  of 
a  formality  than  anything  else.  Still,  in  the  last 
two  or  three  seasons,  there  has  been  some  im- 
provement in  the  matter  of  the  attention  paid 
to  the  unsolicited  play,  and  though  it  falls  far 
short  of  being  in  any  sense  commensurate  with  the 
demand  for  improvement,  it  is  a  movement  in  the 
right  direction.  Nothing  of  substantial  value, 
however,  will  be  accomplished  until  the  producer 
assumes  a  more  encouraging  attitude  toward  the 

35 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

playwright,  and  this  he  never  will  do  until  he  first 
comes  to  a  realization  of  what  fair  treatment  to  a 
playwright's  manuscript  demands.  At  present  he 
is  neither  fair  nor  courteous;  he  is  indifferent, 
careless,  evasive  and  rude. 

Striking  an  approximate  average,  I  should  say 
that  five  manuscripts  a  day  are  received  by  each 
of  the  prominent  producing  managers  of  New 
York.  Some  receive  more  and  some  fewer,  but, 
day  in  and  day  out,  this  figure  is  not  far  from  the 
mark.  Only  one  in  the  five  is  copyrighted,  and 
since  the  records  of  the  copyright  office  show  that 
about  two  thousand  manuscripts  are  registered 
annually,  it  is  safe  to  assume  that  the  total  pro- 
duct amounts  to  ten  thousand  a  year.  Of  this 
annual  output,  less  than  one  hundred  reach  the 
stage  in  the  course  of  a  season  —  so  it  is  apparent 
that  only  one  per  cent  at  the  most,  one  out  of 
every  hundred,  is  possessed  of  sufficient  value  to 
appeal  to  the  producer.  But  it  should  be  remem- 
bered that  not  a  few  of  the  plays  produced  are  of 
foreign  origin  or  have  been  written  to  order  — 
a  fact  which  still  further  reduces  the  meager 
chances  of  the  unknown  American  writer  who 
submits  an  unsolicited  manuscript  to  a  producer. 

It  is  easy  to  make  an  assertion  and  it  is  easy  to 

deny  it,  but  experience  convinces  me  that  not  a 

fifth  of  the  manuscripts  submitted  are  read.     A 

leading  producer  who   comes  forward  with  the 

36 


THE  PATH  OF  THE  PLAYWRIGHT 

perennial  statement  that  he  reads  a  thousand 
manuscripts  a  year  has  just  delivered  himself  of 
his  latest  effusion  on  the  subject.  I  lunched  with 
him  a  day  or  two  ago. 

"  See  here,"  I  said,  "  do  you  really  mean  what 
you  say  about  reading  a  thousand  'scripts  a 
year?" 

41  Of  course  not,"  he  frankly  admitted.  "  I 
don't  read  a  hundred.  How  could  I?  Where'd 
I  find  the  time?  " 

"  Then  why  do  you  make  the  statement?  " 

"  Oh,"  he  continued,  unabashed,  "  that  story  is 
always  good  for  half  a  column,  more  or  less,  in 
every  big  paper  from  New  York  to  San  Fran- 
cisco. Dramatic  editors  will  print  that  when  it  is 
impossible  to  get  anything  else  by  them." 

And  so  Algernon  Smith,  biting  the  end  of  his 
pencil  in  his  Greentown  library  and  reading  the 
half-column  falsehood,  decides  to  decline  the 
clerkship  in  the  Granger  Dry  Goods  store  and  to 
devote  another  year  to  the  pursuit  of  his  profes- 
sion. 

I  talked  recently  with  a  young  man  who  came  to 
New  York  two  years  ago  to  sell  a  play.  Today 
he  does  not  complain  because  he  has  sold  none  but 
because  he  has  been  denied  the  privilege  of  show- 
ing his  goods.  By  some  devious  path,  he  made 
his  way  finally  to  me.  Play-reading  is  not  a  part 
of  my  duties  —  thank  Heaven !  —  but  the  modest 
37 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

sincerity  of  the  young  man  impressed  me  and  I 
took  two  of  his  plays  to  read.  One  of  them 
seemed  to  me  to  be  unusually  good  and  I  sent  it, 
with  a  note  expressing  my  opinion,  to  a  member 
of  the  firm.  He  read  it  while  on  a  train  en  route 
to  Washington  and  accepted  it  by  wire.  That 
manuscript  had  been  in  his  office  twice,  once  for  a 
month,  when  it  was  voluntarily  withdrawn  by  the 
author  for  revision,  and  again  for  seven  months, 
when  it  was  returned  after  he  had  written  half  a 
dozen  letters  asking  for  a  verdict.  On  the  latter 
occasion,  while  the  'script  came  back,  his  courteous 
notes  of  inquiry  elicited  no  response. 

When  a  playwright  sells  a  play  he  sells  it  in  the 
face  of  the  most  unfriendly  and  discouraging 
market  in  the  world.  It  is  all  very  well  to  say 
that  genius  thrives  on  adversity  and  that  rebuff 
spurs  it  on  to  greater  effort,  but  I  believe  that 
some  persons  are  naturally  too  timid,  too  retiring 
and  too  impractical  to  wage  a  successful  fight  for 
a  hearing.  They  may  have  the  best  plays  in  the 
world  but  the  world  will  never  know  it.  Some 
others,  with  more  influence  than  ability,  more  sell- 
ing-sense than  dramatic  skill,  will  succeed  where 
the  more  worthy  fail. 

My  young  playwright  acquaintance  tells  me 
that  some  managers  held  copies  of  his  manu- 
scripts longer  than  we  did  and  that  not  only  did 
they  fail  to  reply  to  his  letters  but  they  failed  also 
38 


THE  PATH  OF  THE  PLAYWRIGHT 

to  return  the  manuscripts.  Nor  could  he  obtain 
them,  or  satisfaction  of  any  sort,  even  by  applying 
in  person.  He  was  treated  with  contempt  as 
often  as  not  and  never  by  any  chance  with  the 
slightest  degree  of  encouragement. 

I  know  a  prominent  fiction  writer  —  unknown 
as  a  playwright  —  who  has  written  what  strikes 
me  as  an  excellent  farce.  A  manuscript  sent  from 
his  pen  to  any  editor  or  publisher  in  this  country, 
or  even  England,  for  that  matter,  would  com- 
mand immediate  attention  whether  it  was  finally 
accepted  or  not.  But  the  novelist's  farce,  sub- 
mitted to  a  prominent  producer  and  in  response 
to  his  personal  request,  too,  has  been  in  the  pro- 
ducer's hands  for  eighteen  months  and  the  author 
has  never  had  as  much  as  a  letter  acknowledging 
its  arrival.  If  he  did  not  possess  a  registry  re- 
ceipt signed  by  an  employe  of  the  firm  and  did 
not  have  the  letter  from  the  manager  himself, 
bearing  his  signature,  requesting  that  the  play  be 
submitted,  he  would  hardly  be  able  to  believe,  he 
says,  that  he  had  actually  sent  it  to  the  producer. 

This  is  nothing,  however,  compared  to  Thomp- 
son Buchanan's  experience.  He  told  me  once 
that  a  play  of  his,  "  According  To  Fate,"  if  I  re- 
call the  title,  remained  with  a  manager  eight 
years.  Indeed,  he  showed  me  correspondence 
to  prove  it.  Where  had  the  manuscript  been  all 
that  time?  "  I  believe,"  Buchanan  said,  "  that  it 
39 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

reposed  in  a  dusty  vault  with  several  hundred 
other  plays  and  was  brought  to  light  when  the 
firm  moved  its  offices  recently."  Charles  Neid- 
linger,  who  wrote  "  The  World  and  His  Wife," 
and  several  other  plays,  used  to  tell  how  the 
former  lay  in  one  manager's  office  nine  months 
before  he  received  any  word  regarding  it.  The 
manager  then  asked  him  how  he  wished  the  manu- 
script returned.  "  Never  mind  returning  it," 
Neidlinger  replied.  "  It  is  playing  in  a  theater 
not  half  a  block  from  your  office."  Later  the 
playwright  learned  that  the  manager  himself 
never  knew  the  manuscript  was  in  his  office. 

A  young  author  writing  me  recently  to  ask  my 
help  in  obtaining  a  hearing  for  him,  said  that  he 
had  proved  to  his  own  satisfaction  by  repeated 
trial  that  it  was  worse  than  useless  to  try  to 
market  a  play  by  mail.  "  I  have  spent,"  his  let- 
ter says,  "  about  two  years  of  actual  working  time 
writing  plays  and  trying  to  get  them  read.  I 
have  spent  in  money  to  the  same  end  $3500.  I 
quote  the  rest  verbatim : 

"  I  could  tell  you  dozens  and  scores  of  things 
that  have  ground  my  pride  and  almost  crushed  my 
hopes  for  a  decent  consideration,  but  to  recount 
them  only  serves  to  make  me  feel  that  it  is  not 
worth  while.  If  I  ever  should  win,  and  I  feel 
confident  that  I  will,  that  which  will  have  carried 
me  through  is  that  quality  which  other  playwrights 

40 


THE  PATH  OF  THE  PLAYWRIGHT 

with  finer  imagination  and  a  keener  feeling  have 
not  got,  courage. 

"  I  have  had  plays  returned  unopened,  some  so 
insecurely  wrapped  that  the  manuscript  was  ab- 
solutely ruined;  and  some,  a  dozen  or  more,  never 
returned  at  all. 

"  And  here  is  another  experience :  an  actor  told 
a  play  agent  that  I  had  written  a  good  play  from 
a  short  story  of  mine,  which  was  originally  pub- 
lished in  a  leading  magazine.  The  actor  was  so 
enthusiastic  that  the  agent  came  to  see  me,  re- 
mained to  Sunday  dinner  with  my  family,  and 
went  away  with  the  'script  under  his  arm. 

"  Two  months  later  I  called  on  him,  not  having 
had  any  replies  to  my  letters  asking  how  things 
were  going,  and  he  told  me  he  had  not  had  a 
chance  to  read  it.  I  took  it  away  in  the  package 
in  which  I  had  given  it  to  him.  He  meant  all 
right,  but  —  ye  gods !  what  can  a  playwright  do  ? 

"  Then  this  very  same  play  was  read  by . 

Changes  were  suggested  and  made,  and  I  received 
a  letter  from  the  general  manager,  enclosing  a 
copy  of  the  report  of  the  readers,  and  telling  me 

,  the  principal  play  reader,  was  enthusiastic 

about  it.  Mr. told  me  so  himself.  But  a 

press  agent  thought  it  wasn't  quite  the  thing. 
However,  two  plays  on  the  same  subject  have  since 
made  a  lot  of  money  in  New  Yorkl 


CHAPTER  VI 

SUBMITTING  A   PLAY 

IT  seems  to  me,  in  view  of  the  adverse  condi- 
tions, that  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  we 
have  so  few  really  good  plays.  The  wonder  is 
that  we  have  good  plays  at  all.  Publishers  and 
magazine  editors,  I  am  informed,  are  always  on 
the  lookout  for  new  and  promising  authors.  The 
editor-in-chief  of  a  leading  publishing  firm  told 
me  the  other  day  with  pride  how  he  and  his  as- 
sistants "  discovered "  some  of  the  prominent 
fiction  writers  of  the  day.  The  list  was  a  long 
one  and  certainly  interesting. 

"  We  used  to  see  an  occasional  short  story  by 
Blank,"  he  told  me,  "  printed  in  some  of  the  more 
obscure  magazines.  Something  in  Blank's  style 
impressed  me  with  the  idea  that  he  could  write  a 
novel  and  write  a  good  one.  I  wrote  to  him, 
urged  him  to  try  his  hand  at  it  and,  finally,  he 
consented.  The  result  was  one  of  the  season's 
six  best  sellers." 

He  told  of  many  such  instances,  and  from 
others  I  have  heard  the  same  thing  —  how,  every- 
where, the  author  who  displays  the  slightest  genu- 
ine ability  is  encouraged  and  his  products  con- 
42 


SUBMITTING  A  PLAY 


structively  criticised  until  he  finally  develops  into 
an  experienced  and  successful  writer.  "  Discov- 
eries "  are  eagerly  sought  and,  when  found,  are 
hailed  with  delight.  How  different  is  the  experi- 
ence of  the  "unknown"  playwright!  The  door 
is  deliberately  shut  in  his  face  and  if  he  gets  in  at 
all  he  must  break  in  or  sneak  in. 

It  is  quite  true  that  the  manager  is  a  busy  man, 
and  that  he  cannot  afford  to  waste  his  time  in  un- 
profitable interviews  with  fledgling  writers.  But, 
while  he  hastens  to  present  this  as  an  excuse,  no 
one  is  asking  or  expecting  it  of  him.  Publishers, 
I  assume,  are  also  busy  men,  but,  long  ago,  they 
learned  that  it  pays  and  pays  handsomely  to  be  on 
the  lookout  for  new  material  from  new  authors. 

A  woman  playwright  who  came  from  the 
Pacific  coast  to  sell  a  play,  devoted  a  year  to  the 
task  and  then  returned  home  to  find  her  'script 
accepted  by  a  producer  who  hails  from  her  own 
city.  Everywhere  she  went  in  New  York,  the 
play-readers  she  saw  were  almost  insultingly  con- 
temptuous. 

"  They  invariably  told  me,"  she  confided, 
"  that  I  was  not  '  in  the  profession.'  One  man 
declared  that  in  all  the  years  he  had  been  reading 
'scripts  he  could  not  remember  one  instance  where 
the  play  of  an  inexperienced  playwright  had  been 
accepted." 

That  statement,  of  course,  was  stupid  and  ob- 
43 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

viously  untrue,  for  there  must  be  a  beginning  to 
everyone's  career  and  the  first  'script  from  any 
author  is  certainly  a  'script  from  an  inexperienced 
writer. 

"  Clyde  Fitch  was  not  born  *  in  the  profes- 
sion,' "  the  playwright  responded.  The  play- 
reader  looked  at  her. 

"  But,"  he  said,  deliberately,  "  you're  not  a 
Clyde  Fitch,  you  know." 

Perhaps  not;  then,  again,  perhaps  yes.  Who 
knows  ? 

"We're  always  looking  for  Clyde  Fitches," 
said  another  play-reader  to  me  one  day. 

"You  didn't  find  Clyde  Fitch,"  I  replied. 
11  He  found  you." 

It  is  my  opinion  that  the  play-readers  engaged 
by  New  York  producers  are,  for  the  most  part, 
incompetent.  Indeed  they  seem  to  be  employed 
more  for  the  purpose  of  disposing  of  the  play- 
wright than  for  appraising  his  work. 

I  would  not  give  a  dollar  for  the  opinion  of  all 
of  them  put  together  —  and  I  am  inclined  to  the 
belief  that  this  is  also  what  most  of  their  em- 
ployers think  of  them.  Some  of  them  have  actu- 
ally so  expressed  themselves,  in  confidence,  of 
course. 

Many  of  these  readers  have  no  breadth  of 
view  at  all.  With  possibly  an  occasional  excep- 
tion, they  are  all  narrowly  provincial  and  are,  or 
44 


SUBMITTING  A  PLAY 


appear  to  be,  utterly  oblivious  of  the  fact  that 
there  is  a  great  area  of  our  country  lying  west 
of  the  Palisades.  A  good  many  managers  are 
similarly  circumscribed  in  view,  and  this  largely 
accounts  for  the  fact  that,  in  recent  seasons,  many 
plays  have  been  failures  "  on  the  road "  that 
have  been  at  least  fair  successes  in  New  York. 

Now  and  then  a  big,  broad,  comprehensive 
play  makes  its  way  to  the  stage,  reflecting,  as 
every  play  should,  the  thoughts  and  feelings  and 
emotions  of  the  great  public  generally,  and  proves 
to  the  manager,  or  ought  to  prove  to  him,  that 
it  pays  to  remember  that  New  York  is  only  a 
small  dot  on  the  map  after  all  and  that  there  is  a 
large,  a  very  large  population,  that  is  geographi- 
cally and  even  emotionally  and  intellectually  re- 
mote from  Manhattan  Island.  The  firm  that 
employs  me  knows  nothing  of  the  country  west  of 
the  Alleghanies.  To  be  sure,  its  members  think 
they  do,  but,  unfortunately,  that  does  not  make  a 
fact  of  their  theory.  They  came  from  up-state 
New  York;  Broadway  was  their  goal  and,  before 
they  came,  when  they  came  and  after  they  came, 
Broadway  was  the  beginning  and  end  of  their 
thoughts,  hopes  and  aspirations.  Today  they 
live  Broadway  and  think  Broadway  and  produce 
for  Broadway. 

Someday,  a  producer  will  appear  who  will  pay 
more  attention  to  this  end  of  his  business.  He 
45 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

will  realize  its  importance.  He  will  have  not 
one  reader  only  but  three  or  four,  or  half  a  dozen 
for  that  matter,  and  the  reports  from  these  on 
the  manuscripts  they  read  will  be  carefully  con- 
sidered by  the  manager.  He  will  attach  some 
value  to  unanimity  of  opinion  among  his  readers, 
who  will  be  chosen  not  for  their  Broadway 
sophistication,  but  solely  for  their  ability  to  judge 
and  appraise  with  fair  degree  of  accuracy.  And 
all  'scripts  will  be  promptly  considered  —  as 
they  are  in  the  publishing  business.  When  this 
policy  has  prevailed  a  year  the  manager  who 
adopts  it  will  find  that  he  is  getting  his  choice  of 
plays  by  known  playwrights  as  well  as  those  by 
unknown  playwrights.  He  will  find  that  he  is 
receiving  the  plays  first  with  first  chance  to  select 
from  them.  And  if  his  readers  are  men  and 
women  of  good  judgment  and  he  himself  is  a 
manager  of  good  judgment  he  will  monopolize  the 
best  of  the  business  because  he  will  monopolize 
the  best  of  the  plays. 

On  every  producer's  staff  of  readers  there 
should  be  a  representative  of  the  West  —  of  the 
remote  and  despised  "  provinces,"  some  one  who 
is  too  Western  in  taste  and  thought  and  habit  to 
be  easily  Broadwayized.  For  the  West  can  give 
New  York  something  that  New  York  does  not 
seem  to  be  able  to  give  itself  —  a  clearer,  kindlier 
view  of  humankind.  It  can  supply  this  because  it 
46 


SUBMITTING  A  PLAY 


has  a  keener,  readier,  sincerer  sympathy  for 
humankind.  It  is  interested  in  people.  A  family 
out  in  my  native  city  knows  all  the  other  families 
in  the  neighborhood;  the  children  are  playfellows 
and  the  parents  are  friends.  Sickness  brings  im- 
mediate offers  of  assistance;  joys  and  griefs  are 
shared.  This  makes  for  the  cultivation  of  inter- 
est in  men  and  women  —  real  interest  —  and 
New  York  does  not  know  it  or  feel  it.  What  it 
mistakes  for  interest  is  curiosity. 

I  believe  this  sympathy,  this  human  interest, 
has  its  value  in  writing  drama,  and  appraising 
drama.  I  think  it  is  essential  for  the  playwright 
and  for  the  play-reader  and,  incidentally,  for  the 
professional  play  critic.  Publishers  have  found 
it  so  and  employ  it  accordingly.  But  the  pro- 
ducer is  at  least  a  quarter  of  a  century  behind  the 
publisher  in  turning  it  to  account. 

A  change  will  come,  I  am  sure;  it  is  inevitable. 
But,  in  the  meantime,  I  am  afraid  that  many  a 
good  play  will  go  unread  and  many  a  hopeful 
young  dramatist  will  be  cruelly  discouraged.  I 
have  never  written  a  play  myself  and,  strangely 
enough,  since  I  have  been  in  the  theatrical  busi- 
ness, I  never  thought  of  writing  a  play.  I  began 
one,  it  is  true,  some  twelve  or  fifteen  years  ago, 
but  I  got  no  further  than  a  scenario.  I  say  this 
because  I  do  not  want  anyone  to  labor  under  the 
suspicion  that  I  am,  in  any  measure,  a  disap- 
47 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

pointed  playwright  myself.  I  am  not,  and  my 
attitude  toward  "  unknown "  playwrights  is 
Broadway's  attitude.  I  don't  want  them  around 
me ;  I  don't  want  to  be  disturbed  by  them.  I  have 
enough  to  do  as  it  is.  But  I  am  aware,  neverthe- 
less, that  my  attitude  is  entirely  wrong  and, 
largely  because  I  soon  shall  have  left  Broadway 
and  the  theatrical  business  far  behind,  I  can  in- 
dulge in  the  satisfaction  of  the  confession. 

Playwrights  are  not  prone  to  take  advice.  On 
the  other  hand,  they  are  too  prone  to  grasp  at 
straws.  But  if  it  fell  to  my  lot  to  advise  a  young 
dramatist  what  to  do  with  his  product  I  would 
counsel  him  to  send  his  play  —  but  only  after  he 
is  satisfied  that  it  is  as  perfect  as  he  himself  can 
make  it  —  to  some  play-broker  or  agent.  There 
are  two  or  three  reliable  agents  and  they  are  alive 
to  the  demands  of  the  producers,  know  what  they 
want,  know  their  needs,  know  to  whom  the  play 
should  be  submitted  and  how  to  submit  it  and  how 
to  obtain  immediate  consideration.  Producers  re- 
spect these  agents,  place  faith  in  their  judgment 
and  pay  some  heed  to  their  recommendations. 
The  reliable  agent  will  not  submit  a  manuscript  to 
a  producer  when  he  knows  the  work  to  be  with- 
out merit.  Oftentimes,  too,  through  the  agent's 
advice  and  suggestion  and  criticism  of  a  play  an 
unpromising  'script  has  been  converted  into  a 
salable  and  valuable  property. 
48 


SUBMITTING  A  PLAY 


Another  effective  means  of  getting  a  manu- 
script promptly  before  a  producer  is  to  interest 
some  prominent  player.  A  good  actor  or  ac- 
tress with  a  good  manuscript  in  hand  is  welcome 
in  any  producer's  office  and  will  gain  immediately 
a  ready  ear.  This  is  a  procedure,  however,  that 
is  hardly  practicable  for  the  writer  who  is  not 
a  resident  of  New  York.  For  those  remote  from 
Broadway,  the  other  course  is  the  safest,  surest 
and  quickest.  Seeing  the  producer  personally  is, 
of  course,  best  of  all,  but  that  is  practically  im- 
possible for  the  unknown  writer.  If  he  gains  the 
audience,  however,  by  some  means  or  other,  he 
will  serve  his  cause  best  if  he  submits  a  brief 
scenario  rather  than  a  completed  play.  The 
manager  might  read  this,  because  of  its  brevity, 
where  he  would  not  read  the  play  as  a  whole. 

The  firm  that  employs  me  began  this  last  season 
with  nineteen  plays  ready  for  production.  It 
may  interest  prospective  playwrights  to  learn  that 
of  these,  five  came  from  abroad,  seven  more  were 
musical  productions  "  built  up,"  for  the  most  part, 
in  rehearsal,  four  were  by  playwrights  each  of 
whom  has  at  least  two  previous  successes  to  his 
credit,  two  by  playwrights  whose  first  plays  — 
neither  of  which  was  a  success  —  were  produced 
the  previous  season,  and  the  remaining  play  was 
by  a  new  dramatist,  her  first  production,  whose 
'script  came  to  us  from  the  office  of  a  play-broker. 
49 


CHAPTER  VII 

TEARS   AND   SMILES 

"  THE  melancholy  days  are  come,"  I  always 
quote  to  myself  about  the  first  week  in  September. 
And  the  remark  has  nothing  at  all  to  do  with  the 
weather.  The  weather,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  is 
usually  ideal,  but,  in  early  September,  theatrical 
Broadway  begins  to  stage  its  dramas  in  real  life. 
They  are  not  apparent  to  the  inexperienced  eye, 
for  it  is  only  when  the  drama  suddenly  twists  it- 
self into  grim  and  ugly  tragedy  that  the  casual  ob- 
server is  made  aware  of  its  existence.  To  one 
who  is  possessed  of  knowledge  and  experience, 
however,  the  curtain  is  drawn  aside.  He  sees 
what  is  concealed  from  the  less  sophisticated  eye. 

On  my  desk  are  lists  of  players  employed  and 
unemployed.  I  know  fairly  well  from  frequent 
perusal  of  the  names  who  is  engaged  and  who,  to 
use  that  ominously  euphonious  phrase  of  theater- 
dom,  is  "  at  liberty."  And  so,  when  I  walk  on 
the  streets  these  days,  and  pass  the  players  I 
know,  the  smiles  they  wear  convey  no  false  im- 
pression to  me.  I  know  who  smiles  by  right  and 
who  smiles  by  force.  The  man  who  seems  to  be 
50 


TEARS  AND  SMILES 


merriest,  who  appears  to  know  neither  care  nor 
worry,  is  very  frequently  the  man  whose  anxiety 
is  the  greatest,  whose  condition  is  the  most  des- 
perate and  whose  heart  is  the  heaviest. 

The  actor  believes  that,  prosperous  or  not,  he 
must  appear  prosperous.  And  he  is  right,  for  in 
no  profession  do  appearances  count  for  so  much. 
To  some  of  them,  though,  there  comes  a  time 
when,  strive  as  they  may,  appearances  can  no 
longer  be  maintained.  Their  necessity  betrays 
itself  and  nothing  worse  could  befall  an  actor. 
Thereafter  he  fights,  not  any  longer  to  get  to  the 
top,  but  to  keep  from  going  to  the  bottom.  His 
professional  career  is  on  the  decline  and  the 
descent  is  rapid.  He  seldom  recovers  and,  as  long 
as  life  remains,  he  faces  the  bitter  necessity  of 
hunting  desperately  for  any  sort  of  employment 
he  can  find. 

I  was  standing  on  Broadway  the  other  day,  talk- 
ing for  a  moment  with  one  of  the  most  prominent 
leading  men  of  the  day.  A  man  shabbily  dressed 
but  still  spotlessly  clean  approached  us  and  asked, 
politely,  for  a  word  with  me.  He  wanted  work; 
he  had  heard  that  we  needed  extra  men  for  a  spec- 
tacular production  we  were  rehearsing  and  he 
begged  for  a  place  in  the  ranks. 

When  first  I  came  to  New  York,  this  man  occu- 
pied a  position  similar  to  that  held  today  by  the 
high-salaried  actor  to  whom  I  was  talking.  The 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

contrast  was  sharp,  and  almost  unconsciously,  my 
gaze  went  from  one  to  the  other. 

"  Ten  years  from  now,"  I  thought  to  myself, 
"  where  will  both  these  men  be?  " 

Players  are  improvident.  Only  a  few  of  them 
save.  The  actor,  when  employed,  spends  freely 
and  lives  well,  and  his  fidelity  to  the  theory  that 
he  must  always  appear  prosperous  compels  him  to 
go  on  living  at  the  same  high  rate  when  his  in- 
come ceases.  What  he  manages  to  save,  there- 
fore, is  soon  exhausted  if  he  is  long  out  of  work 
—  and  that  is  oftenest  his  condition  —  and  when 
the  savings  are  gone,  as  long  as  credit  can  be  had, 
his  style  of  living  remains  unchanged.  When 
again  an  engagement  provides  him  with  an  income, 
old  debts  must  be  settled  and  old  accounts  squared 
before  more  money  can  be  laid  away.  With  nine- 
tenths  of  the  most  prominent  players  today  their 
liabilities  exceed  their  assets;  they  are  bankrupt. 

"  He  was  a  fine  actor  in  his  day,"  said  my  com- 
panion, as  the  figure  of  the  old  player  disappeared. 

"  He  was  indeed,"  I  replied. 

I  have  heard  the  phrase  so  often  that  it  strikes 
me  now  less  impressively  than  formerly.  But, 
back  of  it,  there  is  yet  to  me  a  more  poignant 
drama  than  any  that  fancy  can  devise.  The 
phrase  is  at  once  a  biography  and  an  epitaph. 

"  He  was  a  fine  actor  in  his  day."  What  glory 
of  achievement,  what  pride,  what  memories,  what 
52 


TEARS  AND  SMILES 


disappointments,  what  grievous  heart-aches,  what 
hopelessness,  and,  finally,  what  helplessness  the 
expression  suggests  I  "  In  his  day,"  he  heard  the 
theater  ring  with  applause;  "  in  his  day,"  he  acted 
with  the  best,  his  services  were  in  demand,  he  was 
respected,  he  was  admired;  "  in  his  day,"  his  name 
was  familiar  from  coast  to  coast,  his  portrait  ap- 
peared in  newspapers  and  magazines  and  adorned 
bill-boards,  he  was  famous.  But  the  "  day " 
ended,  the  twilight  fell  and  after  it  the  darkness 
and  obscurity.  And  now  the  pitiful,  pitiless  fight 
in  the  night.  The  tragedy  of  such  failure,  it 
seems  to  me,  is  that  it  does  not  kill. 

"  I  want  to  rub  out  and  fade  away,"  said  to- 
day's leading  man  to  me,  "  with  my  last  good  suit 
of  clothes." 

"  You  will,"  thought  I  to  myself,  "  profession- 
ally, at  least." 

My  sympathies,  however,  are  always  keenest 
for  the  women  of  the  profession,  and  for  the  young 
as  well  as  for  the  old.  Somehow,  the  men  can 
manage  and  do  manage,  but  the  women,  with 
youth  and  beauty  and  strength  departed,  can  find 
no  employment  even  in  the  ranks  of  the  extras. 
And  the  young  girl,  with  hope  leaping  high,  whose 
confidence  is  unshaken  and  who  has  youth's  faith 
in  life  and  in  the  certainty  of  success  —  how  bit- 
terly heavy  is  the  hand  that  disappointment  lays 
on  her. 

53 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

In  the  "  melancholy  days,"  one  sees  her  on 
every  side,  smiling,  always  smiling,  fighting 
bravely  to  keep  her  head  above  water  and  doubly 
sorrowful  through  it  all,  no  doubt,  because  she 
must  forego  that  solace  which  women  find  in  re- 
citing their  woes  to  sympathetic  ears.  But  the 
unwritten  law  of  the  profession  which  forbids  the 
player  to  admit  his  need  seals  her  lips.  With  the 
last  little  frock  frayed  and  worn,  washing  today's 
shirtwaist  for  tomorrow's  wear,  with  the  few  re- 
maining nickels  too  precious  to  spend  for  street- 
car fare,  with  hunger  driving  her  on,  each  day  she 
makes  her  weary  rounds  of  the  theatrical  employ- 
ment agencies,  holding  fast  to  her  courage,  and 
hopeful  even  in  the  face  of  repeated  failure.  At 
night  she  smiles  her  way  back  to  her  wretched 
little  room  and  not  until  its  door  is  closed  and  she 
is  safe  in  its  solitude  does  the  smile  vanish.  The 
tears  may  come  then  if  they  will  for  no  one  is 
there  to  see.  Hope  made  strong  by  necessity  sup- 
ports the  searcher  in  the  day,  but  what  of  the 
hours  of  the  night,  when  sleep  refuses  to  come, 
and  despair  sits  ever  by  her  side  and  refuses  to  be 
driven  away  ? 

Writing  home  for  money,  even  when  money  is 
there  to  be  had  —  which  is  too  seldom  the  case  — 
is  a  final  and  last  resort.  To  acknowledge  even 
temporary  financial  straits  seems  to  the  sorely 
tried  girl  to  be  equivalent  to  a  confession  of  fail- 
54 


TEARS  AND  SMILES 


ure,  and  there  is  no  place  on  earth  where  an  ac- 
tress, young  or  old,  recruit  or  veteran,  wants  to 
have  the  appearance  of  success  and  affluence  more 
than  at  home  in  her  own  native  town.  Many  a 
girl  has  paid  dearly  for  this  pride  and,  I  dare  say, 
many  another  one  will  pay  as  dearly  in  the  future. 

The  other  morning  I  went  to  our  Garden 
theater  where,  next  week,  the  new  spectacular  pro- 
duction opens  its  engagement.  The  time  had  ar- 
rived for  the  hiring  of  the  supers.  I  stood  a  few 
moments  and  watched  as  the  stage  director  in- 
spected the  applicants  and  made  his  selections. 
The  leading  man  of  yesterday,  he  who  had  been 
"  a  fine  actor  in  his  day,"  was  there  with  a  hun- 
dred more  of  his  kind,  men  and  women,  all  human 
derelicts,  floating  rudderless  wherever  the  chang- 
ing, shifting  currents  of  life  happen  to  send  them. 
A  few  nights  hence,  they  will  surge  and  crowd  on 
the  stage  to  give  the  semblance  of  reality  to  a 
mimic  street  fight. 

To  the  spectator  in  his  comfortable  seat  in  the 
front  of  the  house,  they  will  represent  nothing 
more  than  a  theatrical  spectacle.  At  the  sound  of 
a  cue  they  come  and  go.  But,  to  the  observer 
who  reflects,  they  represent  the  real  tragedy  of  the 
stage.  They  are  the  castaways  of  the  profession 
—  the  men  unshaven,  unkempt,  or  shabbily  gen- 
teel, and  the  women,  pathetically  faded,  some  in 
tawdry  finery  and  others  modestly  and  unassum- 
55 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

ingly  dressed.  On  the  very  stage  where  now  they 
appear  as  supers,  it  may  be  that  once,  in  other 
days,  they  played  leading  roles  in  famous  suc- 
cesses. 

In  the  group  was  an  actor,  whose  name  was 
familiar  the  country  over  when  I  was  still  dra- 
matic critic  in  the  Middle  West.  The  face  even 
now  was  notably  distinguished,  despite  the  deep 
lines,  set  by  want  and  hardship,  and  the  red  and 
watery  eyes.  Before  I  arrived  in  New  York  to 
enter  the  theatrical  business,  an  American  man- 
ager had  brought  him  to  this  country  from  Lon- 
don at  a  salary  of  $400  a  week.  Today,  with  less 
than  a  decade  passed,  he  is  a  super  for  $4  a  week. 
Wine  and  women  versus  career  —  that  was  the 
conflict  —  and  the  former  won.  From  leading 
man  to  "  bits  "  and  from  "  bits  "  to  nothing,  the 
descent  had  been  rapid  and  the  end  inevitable. 
And  another  in  the  group,  who  looked  for  all  the 
world  as  though  she  had  come  that  moment  from 
an  East  Side  pushcart,  ten  years  ago  was  a  "  fea- 
tured "  beauty  of  the  musical  comedy  stage,  petted, 
pampered,  wined  and  dined  by  the  roving  million- 
aire buccaneers  of  the  Broadway  main. 

"  How  do  you  do?  "  a  little  man  said,  coming 
to  my  side  with  an  outstretched  hand.  He  spoke 
in  a  husky  whisper.  He,  too,  had  been  "  a  fine 
actor  in  his  day." 

"  You  wonder,  perhaps,"  he  continued,  speak- 

56 


TEARS  AND  SMILES 


ing  with  the  precise  enunciation  of  the  actor  of 
other  years,  "  what  I  am  doing  here?  " 

"  Yes?  "  I  responded,  at  a  loss  what  to  say. 

"  It's  the  voice,"  he  went  on  smiling.  "  But  I 
am  told  it  will  come  back.  In  the  meantime  — 
I  must  work;  I  must  live.  But  I  shall  have  my 
old  place  in  the  profession  again  before  the  season 
is  over." 

The  eyes  looked  hopefully  into  mine. 

"  I've  no  doubt  of  it  at  all,"  I  lied,  cheerfully. 

11  It's  a  great  contrast,  isn't  it?  Why,  I  have 
played  before  audiences  everywhere,  before  Queen 
Victoria,  Victor  Emmanuel  of  Italy,  Alexander  II 
of  Russia  —  in  all  the  Courts.  I  have  visited  all 
the  nations  of  the  world;  I  have  been  on  the  stage 
sixty-five  years  and  I  am  sixty-six  years  of  age." 

He  smiled  again,  at  the  flood  of  recollections. 

"  But  I'll  be  back  where  I  belong  before  the 
season  is  half  gone." 

Poor  chap !  Before  the  season  is  half  gone  he 
will  have  played  the  final  scene  of  all.  Death  al- 
ready stalks  by  his  side. 

In  one  of  our  companies  last  year  there  were 
twenty  extra  men  and  women,  not  one  of  whom 
had  a  line  to  speak.  Each  received  a  salary  of 
$18  a  week  on  the  road,  $15  in  New  York. 
Fourteen  of  the  twenty  —  eight  men  and  six 
women  —  no  longer  than  a  dozen  years  ago  were 
comparatively  prominent  in  the  profession  and 
57 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

found  employment  readily  at  not  less  than  $75  a 
week.  One,  whose  feelings  I  shall  not  further 
wound  by  mentioning  by  name,  has  charmed  thou- 
sands throughout  the  country  with  his  sweet  tenor 
voice,  now  lost  to  him  forever.  Memory  of  him 
still  abides  and  reference  to  him  is  still  frequent 
but  I  doubt  whether  the  public  at  large,  which  so 
often  applauded  him  in  his  prime,  ever  asks  itself 
what  has  become  of  him. 

Another  was  for  years  one  of  the  foremost  im- 
personators of  women  characters  —  of  a  more 
or  less  burlesque  nature  —  and  his  antics  in  petti- 
coat garb  have  brought  laughter  to  a  million 
spectators.  When  the  company  played  in  Boston, 
business  brought  me  there,  and  the  company  ward- 
robe mistress,  herself  formerly  a  musical  comedy 
actress  of  no  mean  ability,  called  my  attention  to 
the  fact  that  he  was  ill  and  helpless.  I  found  him 
suffering  from  inflammatory  rheumatism,  lying 
alone  and  unattended  in  a  wretched  lodging  house 
hovel,  in  dirt  and  filth,  his  money  exhausted  and 
the  slatternly  landlady  threatening  to  evict  him 
unless  he  paid  for  a  week's  lodging  in  advance. 
Nor  were  matters  improved  by  the  fact  that  an 
invalid  wife  at  home  in  New  York  was  dependent 
on  the  meager  remittances  he  could  send  her  from 
time  to  time.  I  laughed  in  the  face  of  an  actor 
who  made  the  most  of  my  presence  on  this  occa- 
sion to  ask  for  an  increase  in  salary,  on  the  basis, 

58 


TEARS  AND  SMILES 


as  he  carefully  explained,  that  with  his  income  of 
$250  a  week  he  could  not  make  both  ends  meet. 
Perhaps,  though,  there  was  more  reason  in  his 
complaint  than  appears  on  the  surface,  for  the 
principals,  and  he  among  them,  had  rehearsed 
eight  weeks  without  a  penny  of  salary  save  what 
they  were  able  to  induce  a  cautious  and  reluctant 
manager  to  advance  them. 

I  returned  to  New  York  from  this  trip  to  learn 
of  the  death  of  an  actor  whose  end  was  hastened, 
I  have  no  doubt,  if  not  directly  caused  by  anxiety 
due  to  unfair  treatment  on  the  part  of  a  prominent 
manager.  The  manager,  himself,  however,  was 
merely  following  a  general  custom  prevailing  in 
managerial  circles  and  practiced  by  myself,  I  must 
confess,  whenever  occasion  seems  to  warrant  it. 
But,  as  I  said  before,  I  have  followed  the  rules  of 
the  game  as  I  found  them  already  laid  down;  I 
have  followed  them  because  I  had  to,  for,  alone 
—  and  I  should  have  been  altogether  alone  —  I 
could  not  change  what  custom  had  established 
and  practice  sanctioned.  In  this  instance,  the 
manager  had  contracted  with  the  player,  engag- 
ing his  services  and,  making  small  advances  from 
time  to  time,  had  thereby  placed  the  actor  in  his 
debt.  No  part,  however,  was  forthcoming  — 
only  empty  promises.  Employment  seemed  al- 
ways just  ahead  —  only  a  week  or  two  away  at  the 
most.  Finally,  the  advances  ceased  and  when  the 
59 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

actor  made  bold  to  complain,  his  complaint  was 
greeted  with  sneers.  He  threatened  legal  pro- 
cedure and  was  told  to  go  ahead.  But  going 
ahead  without  money  was  easier  said  than  done 
and  application  to  the  other  offices  was  met  with 
a  disinclination  to  interfere  with  a  player  under 
contract  to  serve  another  employer.  When  he 
sought  a  release,  it  was  not  granted  and,  finally, 
the  strain  told  so  heavily  that  death  came  sud- 
denly to  put  an  end  for  all  time  to  the  actor's  per- 
plexities and  anxieties.  And  when  it  claimed  him, 
a  little  woman  heard  the  news  dry-eyed  and  sobless 
and  that  night  perished  by  her  own  hand  that  she 
might  be,  as  she  explained  in  the  brief  note  she 
left  behind,  with  the  man  she  loved. 

And  I  might  pile  tragedy  on  tragedy.  No 
other  profession  in  the  world  writes  so  many  pages 
of  it.  No  other  profession  shows  contrasts  as 
startling.  It  has  its  ups  and  downs,  but  the  ups 
seem  superlatively  high  and  the  downs  super- 
latively low. 

"  But  where  is  the  bright  side  of  theatrical 
life?  "  you  ask.  "  Isn't  there  any?  " 

Indeed  there  is.  The  bright  side  is  the 
audience's  side.  The  public  has  a  singularly  slip- 
shod method  of  converting  an  exception  into  a 
glittering  generality.  It  hears  of  the  marvelous 
profits  a  successful  production  makes  and  imme- 
diately concludes  that  all  productions  are  profit- 
60 


TEARS  AND  SMILES 


able.  It  hears  what  a  theater  makes  and  is  eager 
to  build  another  theater  to  duplicate  the  financial 
success  of  the  first,  forgetting  that  it  is  increasing 
the  number  of  playhouses  a  hundred  per  cent  in 
a  year  while  the  theater-going  population  has  not 
increased  twenty  per  cent,  in  the  country  in  ten 
years.  It  learns  on  good  authority  that  this  actor 
or  that  actress  receives  $500  a  week  or  two  or 
three  times  that  sum  and  leaps  to  the  conclusion 
that  this  exceptional  success  is  relatively  true 
throughout  the  profession. 

I  never  see  the  stage  electricians  at  work  with 
their  bunch  lights  and  strips  and  spots  striving 
to  obliterate  shadows  by  flooding  the  stage  with 
light  from  all  angles,  without  reflecting  that  this 
is  precisely  what  the  average  observer  does  men- 
tally so  far  as  the  theater  is  concerned.  He  sees 
the  high  lights  and  forgets  the  shadows.  The 
chorus  smiles  at  him  from  across  the  magic  foot- 
lights and  he  forgets  that  the  chorus  is  paid  to 
smile  and  that  behind  the  smile  there  may  be  and 
generally  is  such  misery  as  he  little  dreams  of. 
Perhaps  it  is  not  amiss,  then,  to  lay  some  emphasis 
on  the  other  side,  the  side  of  which  it  is  neither 
profitable  nor  pleasant  to  write  nor  scarcely  enjoy- 
able to  read.  But  there  it  is  nevertheless  and  di- 
recting attention  to  it  may  be  the  means  of  staying 
the  incautious  feet  of  Mary  Jane  from  straying 
down  a  path  that  too  often  proves  only  a  treach- 
61 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

erous  by-way.  I  am  trying  to  establish  a  sign  on 
the  road  —  Proceed  Slowly ;  Dangerous  Turn 
Ahead. 

It  has  been  six  years  since  I  have  encouraged 
anyone  to  go  on  the  stage,  and  I  wish  today  with 
all  my  heart  that  the  young  woman  I  then  advised 
to  enter  the  profession  had  never  heard  the  coun- 
sel from  my  lips.  I  found  her  in  an  Ohio  city.  I 
was  making  a  tour  of  inspection  of  theaters  and  in 
the  city  where  she  lived  I  had  finished  my  business 
and  gone  to  the  station  only  to  find  my  train  sev- 
eral hours  late.  It  was  an  evening  in  early 
spring,  unseasonably  warm,  and  I  boarded  a  street 
car  for  a  ride  to  the  outskirts  of  the  city  and  back. 
When  I  alighted  to  catch  a  returning  car,  a  sud- 
den shower  caused  me  to  seek  shelter  in  the  only 
place  that  offered  —  a  moving  picture  theater.  I 
stood  in  the  rear  with  my  attention  on  the  audi- 
ence more  than  on  the  screen  until  I  was  suddenly 
aware  that  a  young  girl  had  appeared  on  the  rude 
platform  stage  and  was  singing.  Her  voice  was 
remarkable,  untrained  though  it  was,  strikingly 
impressive  and  it  was  immediately  apparent  that 
behind  it  was  a  singularly  fascinating  personality. 
Despite  the  fact  that  she  had  selected  songs  not 
at  all  calculated  to  appeal  to  her  hearers,  the  audi- 
ence liked  her,  applauded  her  and  demanded  an 
encore.  I  saw  in  her,  to  be  brief,  that  rare  com- 
bination of  youth,  magnetism,  talent  and  beauty 
62 


TEARS  AND  SMILES 


that  gives  success  in  such  liberal  measure  to  those 
fortunate  enough  to  possess  them.  She  was  a 
"  find,"  a  "  discovery."  I  sought  the  manager, 
made  a  few  cautious  inquiries,  learned  her  name 
—  Alice  Carey  I  shall  call  her  —  and  gathered  the 
additional  information  that  she  was  paid  a  dollar 
a  night  for  her  singing.  More  about  her  he  did 
not  know  and  most  certainly  he  was  not  aware 
that  the  girl  had  more  than  ordinary  ability. 

"  Will  she  sing  again?  "  I  asked. 

"  Yes  —  once  more  and  then  she's  done  for  the 
night." 

A  little  later,  before  the  second  song  was  ended, 
I  slipped  away  and  stood  in  the  shadows  in  the 
rear  of  the  little  theater  until  I  saw  the  door  open 
and  the  singer  emerge.  She  was  alone  and  with- 
out more  ado  I  walked  up  to  her  and  spoke.  She 
was  frightened  but  I  hastened  my  explanation 
and,  though  still  suspicious  when  together  we 
boarded  an  inbound  car,  I  had  reassured  her  par- 
tially at  least.  She  was  entirely  convinced,  I 
think,  of  the  truth  of  my  explanation  when  we  left 
the  car  at  the  entrance  of  our  local  theater  and  she 
found  herself  witnessing  the  final  scenes  of  the 
light  opera  that  was  the  week's  attraction. 

There  was  method  in  my  procedure,  for  I  had 

great  respect  for  the  opinion  of  the  orchestra 

leader  of  the  company  and,  for  that  matter,  for 

the  verdict  also  of  the  stage  manager.     Not  at  all 

63 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

abashed,  little  Alice  Carey  consented  to  sing  for 
these  gentlemen  at  the  conclusion  of  the  perform- 
ance and  their  judgment  confirmed  my  own. 

The  upshot  of  it  all  was  a  contract  with  the  girl 
and  an  agreement  for  her  to  join  the  company  a 
week  later  when  it  passed  through  the  city  again 
enroute  eastward.  A  month  afterward  the  com- 
pany —  a  new  production  breaking  in  on  the  road 
for  its  New  York  opening  —  reached  Broadway, 
and  was  an  immediate  success.  Alice  Carey, 
singing  a  minor  part,  was  favorably  remarked  by 
the  critics  and  well  started,  it  seemed  to  me,  on 
the  road  to  success  and  fame. 

Seasons  come  and  go  and  crowd  their  events 
fast  on  the  heels  of  those  preceding.  Time  is 
short  and  the  days  and  nights  full  of  work.  In  a 
year  I  had  forgotten  Alice  Carey  and  even  the 
part  I  played  in  her  life  had  faded  from  my 
memory. 

I  was  seated  in  a  Broadway  cafe  one  night  with 
a  newspaper  man  who  reported  theatrical  news 
for  his  paper.  We  were  eating  a  midnight  lunch 
when  my  attention  was  attracted  by  a  girl  who 
was  sitting  alone  at  a  nearby  table.  Once  or 
twice,  when  our  eyes  met,  I  thought  she  was  about 
to  nod  her  head  in  recognition,  but  the  movement 
was  too  slight  to  be  depended  upon  and,  as  her 
face  was  strange  to  me,  I  concluded  I  was  wrong. 
But  I  could  not  help  noticing  that  she  was  drink- 
64 


TEARS  AND  SMILES 


ing  and  drinking  heavily.  Her  loneliness,  the  fact 
that  she  was  loudly  dressed  in  the  extreme  of  the 
day's  most  extreme  fashion,  the  tired,  wearied, 
haunted  look  on  her  face  that  rouge  and  powder 
did  not  conceal  and  her  frequent  orders  to  the 
waiter  made  passing  record  on  my  mind  and  would 
have  stopped  at  that,  no  doubt,  if  I  had  not  seen 
the  head  waiter  address  her,  assist  her  to  her  feet 
and  politely,  but  firmly,  send  her  away.  She  was 
ejected. 

"  It's  too  bad  about  that  girl,"  said  the  re- 
porter, when  she  had  lurched  unsteadily  past  our 
table.  "  Two  years  ago  she  gave  promise  of  do- 
ing fine  things." 

I  was  not  interested  and  I  made  no  reply. 

"  Somebody  picked  her  up,"  he  gossiped  on, 
"  in  a  town  out  West.  She  came  here  in  a  musical 
comedy,  and  because  she'd  never  been  thirty  miles 
away  from  her  home  before,  had  never  seen  the 
inside  of  a  Pullman  or  eaten  on  a  diner  before  she 
stepped  out  of  a  moving  picture  house  to  a  $50 
job  on  the  stage,  I  gave  her  a  column." 

Latent  memory  stirred  to  life. 

"What'dyousay?"Iasked. 

He  repeated  his  information. 

"  She  would  have  made  good,  too,"  he  went  on, 
"  if  the  lights  hadn't  dazzled  her.  But  it's  the 
same  old  story  —  I  get  tired  hearing  it.  Broad- 
way got  her  and  she's  no  better  now  than  the 
65 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

worst.  I'm  not  surprised  they  put  her  out;  I'm 
more  surprised  she  had  the  nerve  to  come  in. 
Made  bold  by  drink,  I  suppose,"  he  concluded. 

Gradually,  there  came  before  my  eyes  a  half- 
forgotten  scene.  I  saw  a  stuffy,  close,  crowded 
moving  picture  house  in  a  little  city  in  Ohio.  A 
flashing  spotlight  threw  its  glare  on  the  face  of  a 
young  girl  who  stepped  forward  to  sing.  The 
audience  heard  her  and  applauded  and  I  saw  a 
man  standing  in  the  rear  suddenly  become  alert 
and  attentive  as  he  also  heard  the  girl's  voice.  It 
was  enough. 

"  Waiter,"  I  called,  "  the  check." 

And  I  went  out  into  the  night. 

I  sometimes  wonder  how  much  personal  re- 
sponsibility attaches  to  the  influence  we  bring  to 
bear  on  the  lives  of  others.  And  what  is  it,  after 
all,  which,  for  good  or  for  ill,  warps  us  from  old 
courses  to  follow  new  ?  Why,  for  instance,  when 
I  awoke  one  morning  years  ago  to  discover  to  my- 
self that  I  wanted  more  room  and  broader  oppor- 
tunity did  Bingo,  at  that  very  moment,  a  thousand 
miles  away,  stand  in  need  of  a  publicity  agent? 
What  force  created  his  necessity  and  my  desire 
and  made  them  fit  each  other?  What  delayed 
my  train  on  the  spring  evening  in  the  Ohio  city 
and  then  placed  me  aboard  a  street  car  to  bring 
me,  willy  nilly,  within  the  range  of  the  voice  of 
Alice  Carey? 

66 


TEARS  AND  SMILES 


I  have  reached  the  age,  I  suppose,  when  most 
men  have  arrived  at  some  fairly  well  defined  idea 
of  these  controlling  forces.  But  I  find  that  I  am 
strangely  without  a  philosophy  of  life.  I  have 
not  thought  about  it.  In  ten  years  I  have  done 
the  work  of  twenty  and  I  have  had  little  time, 
even  if  I  had  been  possessed  of  the  inclination,  to 
reflect  on  a  matter  so  abstract.  But  I  think  that 
the  subconscious  part  of  my  mind  has  all  along 
been  considering  the  problem  and  is  prepared  to 
lay  before  me  the  evidence  it  has  gathered. 
What  it  all  points  to  I  cannot  say,  but,  from 
the  array  of  half-forgotten  incidents  and  expe- 
riences brought  forward  now  by  the  busy  agency 
that  has  served  me  without  my  knowledge,  I  can 
come  quickly  to  one  conclusion  at  least.  We  may 
call  it  what  we  will,  ignore  it,  evade  it  or  rebel 
against  it,  fear  it  or  worship  it,  there  is  some 
power  beyond  us  and  above  us  that  directs  us 
more  surely  than  we  realize.  As  bits  of  broken 
glass  whirl  in  a  kaleidoscope  to  combine  into  new 
designs,  so  incidents  and  circumstances  —  and  ac- 
cidents— shift  and  join  to  shape  life's  pattern. 
But  —  what  force  turns  the  wheel? 


CHAPTER  VIII 

WITH  THE   PRODUCER 

IN  the  public  mind  there  is  a  good  deal  of  mys- 
tery associated  with  the  production  of  plays.  But 
the  mystery  begins  there  and  ends  there.  There 
is  none  in  the  business  itself.  I  have  just  come 
from  the  witness  stand  where  I  gave  what  the 
lawyers  call  "  expert "  testimony  in  a  suit  brought 
by  a  young  man  to  recover  some  money  lost  in  a 
theatrical  venture.  If  the  young  man  in  the  case 
had  not  shared  the  public's  credulity,  the  proba- 
bilities are  that  he  would  still  have  his  money,  or 
at  least  a  good  part  of  it. 

His  main  trouble  was  a  readiness  to  accept  with- 
out question  all  he  heard  and  all  he  read  about  the 
cost  of  producing  plays.  He  believed  that  when 
a  manager  advertised  a  production's  cost  as  $100,- 
ooo,  it  was  $100,000  it  cost!  The  fact  that  it 
really  cost  considerably  less  than  half  that  sum 
never  occurred  to  him.  He  was  ready  to  invest 
on  the  basis  of  what  he  believed  the  cost  to  be. 
So,  when  he  put  up  $10,000  for  a  half-interest  in 
a  production,  a  half  interest  was  all  he  got,  but  his 
capital  paid  for  the  whole  of  the  production  and 
68 


WITH  THE  PRODUCER 


in  addition  put  some  money  in  his  partner's 
pocket.  Naturally,  when  this  began  to  dawn  on 
him,  he  wanted  an  accounting.  He  will  probably 
get  his  accounting;  the  Court  will  allow  him  that, 
and,  possibly,  a  judgment  against  the  partner  — 
the  Court  may  even  allow  him  that.  However, 
he  can  rest  assured  he  will  not  get  back  any  of 
his  money.  But  he  has  had  what  Hattie  Williams 
used  to  sing  about — "  Experience." 

Speaking  of  hundred  thousand  dollar  produc- 
tions leads  me  to  remark  that  there  never  has 
been  a  hundred  thousand  dollar  production.  The 
most  expensive  production  I  know  of  cost  $60,- 
ooo ;  and  it  cost  that  much  because  the  producer 
who  put  it  on  had  no  storehouse  filled  with  old 
scenery  to  draw  from.  Klaw  and  Erlanger,  Wil- 
liam A.  Brady  or  Lee  Shubert,  to  mention  only 
three,  could  have  staged  the  play,  and  staged  it 
as  completely,  for  half  that  sum.  All  of  these 
producers  are  well  stocked  with  old  sets  and  prop- 
erties and  they  know  how  to  use  them.  Not  long 
ago,  I  saw  the  same  interior  set  in  three  new 
Broadway  productions,  and  the  three  of  them, 
moreover,  appeared  in  rapid  succession.  Of 
course,  the  first  two  were  failures,  each  playing 
only  a  fortnight  or  less,  so  it  was  altogether  prac- 
ticable, though  first  nighters  found  it  a  little 
monotonous,  to  use  the  same  set  in  all  three.  Nor 
was  it  new  even  to  begin  with ;  it  had  seen  service 
69 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

the  season  before.  There  is  something  like  a 
million  dollars'  worth  of  this  old  scenery  in  the 
storehouses  of  New  York  —  unknown  to  the 
novice  but  available  to  the  man  who  knows  the 
business. 

Cost,  it  might  be  said,  is  invariably  exagger- 
ated. I  have  seen  some  of  our  own  productions 
advertised  as  costing  $50,000  when  the  entire  out- 
lay, with  every  bill  audited  and  paid  —  every  one 
of  them  passing  through  my  own  hands  —  would 
not  have  totaled  $15,000.  But  exaggeration  of 
one  sort  or  another  is  a  peculiarity  of  the  theat- 
rical business.  From  producer  to  usher,  from 
star  to  super,  everybody  speaks  in  hyperbole.  It 
is  a  childish  sort  of  thing  to  do,  but  the  only  per- 
son deceived  by  it  is  the  person  outside  of  the  pro- 
fession or  the  beginner  who  has  just  entered  it. 
Unfortunately,  though,  it  is  the  cause  of  a  lot  of 
unnecessary  disappointment  and  unhappiness. 

Peggy  Hall,  for  example,  is  just  emerging  from 
that  credulous  period  when  she,  like  all  the  rest 
before  her,  evinced  an  ingenuous  readiness  to  be- 
lieve everything  she  heard.  It  is  the  period  in 
the  beginner's  career  when  the  theater  is  still  what 
it  is  to  the  public  in  general  —  a  place  of  fascinat- 
ing mystery.  But  stern  reality  is  already  invad- 
ing Peggy's  land  of  dreams  and  the  illusions  are 
retreating.  She  is  beginning  to  perceive  that 
what  seemed  from  afar  so  enchanting  bears,  on 
70 


WITH  THE  PRODUCER 


closer  inspection,  a  far  different  aspect.  It  is  like 
the  cosmetic  beauty  of  the  actress  —  the  closer 
it  is  observed  the  less  attractive  it  appears.  It  is 
only  genius  that  never  loses  the  enthusiasm  of  its 
illusions  or  counts  the  way  too  rough  or  dark  so 
long  as  it  leads  onward  toward  the  goal  of  its  as- 
piration. 

There  is  excitement  in  this  life  behind  the  scenes 
and  Peggy  has  had  the  fever  of  it  and,  I  might 
say,  the  delirium  of  the  fever.  But,  while  the 
business  side  of  the  theater  is  not  without  a  stimu- 
lation of  the  same  sort,  this  department  cannot  in- 
dulge itself  in  the  excitement  that  the  players  ex- 
perience and  even  cultivate.  It  must  try  to  re- 
main calm,  preserve  its  mental  equilibrium  and 
sharpen  its  wits  rather  than  its  emotions.  It  must 
be  all  the  more  coldly  calculating  and  shrewdly 
judicial,  too,  for  the  very  reason  that  at  the  other 
end  of  theatrical  affairs,  there  is  this  feverish  de- 
lirium. 

And  for  the  most  part  calculating  and  judicial 
it  is.  It  is  commercial.  Producers  produce  plays 
because  they  think  the  plays  will  make  money. 
Plays  are  not  produced  merely  because  they  are 
artistic  or  because  they  may  serve  some  reform 
purpose.  Statements  to  such  effect  are  pure  bun- 
combe. They  are  press  agents'  fiction.  Plays 
are  produced  because  they  promise  profits  to  the 
producer  and  for  no  other  reason  in  the  world. 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

And  if  by  chance  they  are  ever  anything  more  than 
profitable,  they  are  so  incidentally,  if  not  accident- 
ally. Getting  money  out  of  them  is  the  man- 
ager's business;  getting  art  into  them  must  take 
care  of  itself.  When  a  manager  gets  his  hands 
on  a  play  that  he  thinks  will  interest  the  public 
sufficiently  to  draw  the  public's  patronage  —  and 
dollars  —  his  first  procedure,  of  course,  is  to  sign 
a  contract  with  the  playwright.  If  the  play- 
wright happens  to  be  a  new  writer  without  the 
prestige  of  name  or  success,  he  will  be  doing  well 
if  the  producer  agrees  to  pay  him  a  royalty  of  five 
per  cent,  of  the  weekly  gross  receipts  up  to  $5000, 
seven  and  one-half  per  cent,  up  to  $10,000  and  ten 
per  cent,  of  all  over  that.  These  terms  are  emi- 
nently fair  to  both  parties.  But  the  playwright 
will  make  no  mistake  if  he  insists  that  everything 
promised  verbally  is  set  down  in  black  and  white 
in  his  contract.  He  should  take  nothing  for 
granted  and  nothing  on  faith.  Later  on,  if  the 
play  is  a  success,  he  should  permit  no  departure 
even  in  the  slightest  detail  from  the  spirit  and  the 
letter  of  his  contract.  He  will  regret  it  if  he 
does. 

For  the  man  of  limited  capital  the  business 
world  in  general  affords  a  thousand  good  oppor- 
tunities to  one  that  may  be  found  in  the  theatrical 
field.  There  the  chances  are  all  against  him.  It 
is  astonishing,  though,  how  many  there  are  who 
72 


WITH  THE  PRODUCER 


will  risk  everything  they  have  to  get  into  the  busi- 
ness. Even  women  are  no  exceptions.  I  heard 
a  young  matron  only  the  other  day  recite  the 
doleful  tale  of  her  own  experience.  She  wanted 
to  act;  with  her  the  stage-struck  period  had  come 
later  in  life  than  usual.  She  had  escaped  it  at 
sixteen  only  to  be  attacked  at  twenty-six,  and,  like 
measles  delayed  beyond  childhood,  when  it 
"  took,"  it  "  took  "  hard. 

She  knew  a  young  producer  who  had  gained  a 
passing  reputation  through  one  successful  pro- 
duction —  which,  by  the  way,  made  him  very  little 
money  —  and  to  him  she  went,  check  book  in 
hand.  When  the  negotiations  were  finished, 
$10,000  had  passed  from  her  account  to  his  and 
she  had  for  her  money  a  contract  in  which 
the  manager  agreed  to  produce  a  certain  play 
within  a  year,  place  her  in  the  leading  role  and 
give  her  a  fifth  interest  in  the  production.  This 
signed  and  sealed,  promptly  the  young  man  ex- 
changed the  woman's  gold  for  letters  of  credit 
and  set  off  to  Europe  in  romantic  pursuit  of  an 
actress  who  had  captured  his  susceptible  heart. 
He  returned  minus  the  money  and  minus  the  lady, 
but  not  especially  worried  over  the  outlook  for  he 
had  the  comforting  reassurance  that  the  play  had 
only  one  set  for  all  its  three  acts  and  could  be  re- 
hearsed and  staged  entire  for  a  cost  not  to  exceed 
$2,000.  So,  for  a  chance  to  act  and  a  fifth  inter- 
73 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

est  in  an  unproduced  play  —  an  interest  worth 
$500  at  the  most  —  the  woman  had  paid  $10,000. 

The  play,  it  ought  to  be  remarked,  is  still  un- 
produced and  the  same  manager,  I  happen  to 
know,  is  under  contract  with  another  person,  a 
young  man  this  time,  to  produce  the  same  play 
within  another  year.  When  the  first  partner,  act- 
ing on  a  suggestion  that  followed  her  tearful  re- 
cital to  me,  demanded  the  return  of  her  money, 
the  second  partner  was  annexed,  together  with 
$5,000  he  possessed,  and  this  sum  was  turned  over 
to  the  first  partner  with  a  note  for  the  balance. 
Peter  has  been  robbed  to  pay  Paul  but  who  will  be 
robbed  to  pay  Peter  remains  to  be  seen. 

One  might  enumerate  half  a  hundred  producing 
managers,  big  and  little,  but  if  the  number  really 
reaches  this  total,  I  will  wager  that  forty  of  them 
are  doing  business  on  borrowed  capital.  Some 
of  the  biggest,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  put  precious 
little  of  their  own  money  in  their  productions. 
They  get  their  capital  from  "  silent "  partners. 
And  profits  that  may  accrue  do  not  go  back  into 
the  producing  business,  either;  they  may  go  into 
the  purchase  or  building  of  theaters  now  and 
then,  but  for  the  most  part,  they  go  into  invest- 
ments of  an  entirely  different  kind.  Klaw  and 
Erlanger  are  rich  men  but  the  bulk  of  their  money 
is  in  investments  outside  of  the  theater.  They 
know  the  hazard  of  the  business,  and,  fortunately 
74 


WITH  THE  PRODUCER 


for  themselves,  they  are  in  a  position  to  let  others 
take  the  risks.  The  two  Shuberts  pursue  the 
same  course.  A.  H.  Wood's  fortune  is  so  dis- 
tributed that  only  a  small  portion  is  represented 
by  his  theatrical  enterprises.  William  Harris, 
Henry  Savage,  Winthrop  Ames,  John  Cort  and 
two  or  three  more  all  depend  for  their  substantial 
incomes  on  investments  that  are  far  more  reliable 
than  play  producing. 

I  could  name  half  a  dozen  millionaires  who, 
for  one  reason  or  another,  are  silent  partners  of 
various  producing  managers.  Why  they  go  in 
for  this  sort  of  thing  is  not  as  perplexing  as  it 
might  seem  to  be.  Some  of  them  want  a  finger 
in  the  pie  not  especially  because  of  any  possible 
profits  but  merely  to  gratify  a  desire  to  be  as- 
sociated with  the  stage.  For  two  dollars  they 
can  buy  a  seat  in  the  front  of  the  house  but  to 
gain  entrance  through  the  stage  door  sometimes 
costs  a  fortune. 

A  few  of  them,  too,  and  not  always  the  young- 
est, either,  are  promoting  the  ambitions  of  vari- 
ous captivating  young  actresses  whose  blandish- 
ments excel  their  talents  and  whose  return  for 
the  money  spent  on  them  and  for  them  is  cer- 
tainly never  made  in  kind.  Most  persons  high 
up  in  the  business,  and  many  others  not  so  high 
up,  know  who  is  putting  up  for  whom,  and  why. 
And  practically  everybody  in  the  profession  knows 
75 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

that  the  profession  is  full  of  this  sort  of  thing  — 
knows  it  and  discusses  it  and  gossips  about  it  and 
accepts  it  as  a  matter  of  course,  something  to  be 
expected  and  quite  natural. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE   MEN   IN   POWER 

THEATRICAL  producing  in  the  last  eight  or  ten 
years  has  come  to  be  more  than  ever  the  business 
for  the  man  with  large  capital.  To  produce  in 
wholesale  is  the  only  safe  way  to  produce. 

"  If  I  get  three  successes  out  of  ten  produc- 
tions," Lee  Shubert  said  to  me  one  day,  "  I  am 
satisfied."  That  season  Shubert  got  no  more 
than  two  successes  out  of  ten  productions  and  the 
two  came,  one  after  six  successive  failures  and 
the  other  as  the  ninth  production  of  the  series. 
The  man  with  limited  means  would  have  been 
bankrupt  before  he  could  have  staged  the  play 
that  was  the  first  of  that  group  of  ten  to  prove 
profitable.  He  might  argue,  of  course,  as  I 
heard  a  young  producer  argue  the  other  day,  that 
he  would  be  able  to  select  more  wisely.  But  the 
fact  remains  that,  after  all,  few  do. 

As  for  the  man  who  wants  to  "  break  into  the 

game  "  as  an  independent  producer,  he  will  find 

it  about  as  difficult  as  breaking  into  a  modern 

bank  vault.     The  theatrical  affairs  of  the  country 

77 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

rest  in  the  hands  of  four  men  —  Marc  Klaw  and 
Abraham  Erlanger  and  Lee  and  J.  J.  Shubert. 
These  men,  through  ownership,  leases  or  book- 
ing contracts  of  one  kind  and  another,  control  the 
first  class  theaters  of  the  country.  To  the  long 
and  bitter  fight  between  the  "  syndicate  " —  Klaw 
and  Erlanger  and  their  allies  —  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  "  independents,"  as  they  were  pleased 
to  call  themselves  —  the  Shubert  Brothers  and 
their  allies  —  on  the  other,  I  need  hardly  refer. 
I  went  through  that  fight  and  I  wear  its  scars, 
figuratively  speaking,  today.  It  is  ancient  history 
now,  however,  for  a  truce  exists  at  present  and 
bids  fair,  as  the  combatants  learn  to  trust  each 
other  more  and  to  forget  the  old  bitterness,  to 
develop  into  a  permanent  peace  that  will  entirely 
eliminate  such  cut-throat  competition  as  may  still 
remain. 

I  have  heard  some  producers  express  unquali- 
fied approval  of  the  present  arrangement  and  its 
future  promise.  But  I  disagree  with  them.  I 
am  "  on  the  inside";  I  see  the  trend  of  things. 
And  I  am  absolutely  certain  that  if  the  Shuberts 
and  the  syndicate  get  any  closer  together  than 
they  are  today  there  will  be  many  a  producer, 
manager,  playwright  and  actor  clamoring  for  a 
return  of  old  conditions.  Nothing  worse,  in  my 
opinion,  could  befall  the  theater. 

The  only  thing  that  stands  now  in  the  way  of 
78 


THE  MEN  IN  POWER 


a  tightening  of  the  grip  is  the  Shubert  fear  of 
syndicate  retaliation  and  the  syndicate  dread  of 
Shubert  reprisal.  Let  them  combine,  however,  in 
a  hard  and  fast  amalgamation  of  interests,  work- 
ing together  without  suspicion  of  each  other,  and 
I  will  wager  that  everybody  connected  with  the 
profession  or  the  business,  except  the  trust  itself, 
will  be  only  too  willing  to  exchange  peace  for  war. 

There  is  little,  even  as  things  are  now,  to  en- 
courage the  young  producer.  It  is  all  very  well 
to  produce,  but  what  about  the  theaters  in  which 
to  show  what  is  produced?  The  Shuberts  and 
the  syndicate  control  the  playhouses.  Every  first 
class  play  that  tours  the  country  must  be  booked 
through  one  agency  or  the  other.  If  it  happens 
that  neither  agency  sees  any  merit  in  the  produc- 
tion submitted  for  booking,  it  will  not  be  booked. 
It  will  die  for  the  lack  of  a  roof  to  shelter  it. 
Such  a  fate  may  be  deserved;  on  the  other  hand, 
it  is  barely  possible  that  it  may  not  be. 

The  trouble  lies  in  the  fact  that  Klaw  and  Er- 
langer  and  the  Shuberts  take  no  pains  to  find 
out.  They  act  as  judge,  jury  and  executioner  and 
not  in  person,  either,  but  usually  by  proxy,  and 
not  by  very  intelligent  proxy  at  that.  Perhaps 
some  inner  voice  of  discretion  warns  them  to 
avoid  the  personal  appraisement  and  so  escape 
any  subsequent  embarrassment.  And  in  thus  pro- 
viding themselves  with  an  alibi  they  disclose  again 
79 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

that  native,  Hebraic  shrewdness  which  has  char- 
acterized all  their  business  procedure  and  which 
is  at  once  the  despair  and  envy  of  those  who  have 
suffered  by  it  or  profited  from  it.  They  know, 
in  other  words, —  from  experience,  no  doubt  — 
that  ignorance  betrays  itself  utterly  only  through 
display.  So  they  remain  discreetly  in  the  back- 
ground and  send  forward  a  substitute  on  whose 
unfortunate  head,  if  necessity  arises,  blame  can 
later  fall. 

I  have  known  these  men  for  ten  years,  I  have 
worked  with  them  and  against  them,  my  associa- 
tion with  them  has  enabled  me  to  form  a  fairly 
accurate  estimate  of  their  tastes  and  of  the  scope 
and  reliability  of  their  judgment,  and  I  do  not 
hesitate  to  say  that  only  one  of  the  four  has  ever 
exhibited  to  me  any  indication  of  possessing  in 
the  slightest  degree  any  sense  of  apreciation  for 
real  dramatic  art.  What  knowledge  they  may 
have,  or  profess  to  have  or  what  they  may  think 
or  feel  about  any  other  art,  I  do  not  pretend  to 
know.  My  business  with  them  has  been  confined 
to  the  field  of  art  in  which  our  mutual  interests 
lay  and  my  experience  with  them  there  was  never 
of  a  sort  to  encourage  me  to  go  further.  It  was 
sufficient  in  itself  —  like  a  bad  oyster.  And  as 
for  the  one  I  except  I  have  never  known  his 
pocketbook  to  pay  tribute  to  any  craving  of  his 
artistic  soul.  He  has  never  sacrificed  a  nickel  to 
80 


THE  MEN  IN  POWER 


indulge  his  taste  for  art.  He  has  proceeded  on 
the  policy  that  art  is  all  right  if  it  is  profitable 
but  that  profits,  first  and  last,  are  the  final  and 
only  end  and  aim,  art  or  no  art,  or,  to  use  his 
own  words  often  repeated,  "  art  be  damned." 

Fresh  in  my  memory  is  an  incident  that  illus- 
trates their  method  of  procedure.  A  producer,  a 
young  man  and  ambitious,  staged  a  play,  with 
barely  enough  money  to  see  him  through  to  the 
first  performance.  This  took  place  in  Philadel- 
phia and  when  the  curtain  rose  on  the  opening 
night,  the  producer  had  all  his  money  in  the  pro- 
duction and  his  notes  out  for  more.  He  had  fol- 
lowed the  usual  custom  and  had  asked  Klaw  and 
Erlanger  to  send  some  one  to  see  his  play.  The 
man  sent  in  response  to  the  request  was  picked 
up  at  the  last  minute.  He  was  utterly  incompe- 
tent to  judge  anything.  He  was  both  ignorant 
and  coarse.  He  went,  he  saw,  he  condemned. 
To  hear  his  account  of  the  plot  was  ludicrous. 
He  had  missed  the  most  obvious  points,  but  he  cer- 
tainly had  missed  nothing  at  a  nearby  bar. 

The  Shuberts  sent  a  woman  stenographer.  She 
was  of  higher  grade,  to  be  sure,  but  she  thought 
it  was  safer  to  condemn  than  to  recommend,  and 
condemn  she  did.  The  producer  was  in  despair. 
He  had  faith  in  his  property;  he  believed  in  its 
ultimate  success.  But  all  the  faith  in  the  world 
without  a  theater  to  play  in  would  profit  him  noth- 
81 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

ing.  Some  one  suggested  that  a  man  controlling 
three  New  York  theaters  stood  in  need  of  some 
kind  of  an  attraction  to  fill  at  least  one  of  them. 
He  was  a  syndicate  ally,  but  known  to  enjoy  some 
personal  freedom  of  action.  So  the  producer' 
borrowed  some  more  money,  took  the  train  to 
New  York  and  finally  persuaded  the  theater  man- 
ager to  accompany  him  back  to  Philadelphia.  In 
the  end,  this  man  agreed  to  admit  the  production 
to  one  of  his  houses.  Two  days  later,  every  critic 
in  New  York  acclaimed  the  play  a  success,  and  it 
remained  on  Broadway  for  half  a  year. 

During  that  period,  Klaw  and  Erlanger  tried  to 
buy  an  interest  in  the  production.  The  Shuberts 
repeatedly  made  the  same  attempt.  The  syndi- 
cate wanted  to  book  it  on  the  road  and  so  did  the 
Shuberts.  There  was  not,  at  that  time,  an  agree- 
ment of  any  kind  between  the  two  offices  and  the 
producer  could  have  got  concessions  worth  while. 
But  the  protocol  was  signed  while  the  negotiations 
were  pending  and  thereafter,  the  producer  found 
himself  obliged  to  take  what  he  was  offered  — 
that  or  nothing. 

Nor  was  that  all.  He  was  pressed  here  and 
pressed  there,  in  a  manner  that  completely  baffled 
him,  and  the  pressure  never  ceased  until  he  sold 
out  his  interest  to  one  of  the  quartette  —  which 
one  I  shall  not  say  —  for  a  sum  that  was  far  be- 
low its  value.  Having  nothing  more  at  the  time 
82 


THE  MEN  IN  POWER 


that  anyone  else  could  possibly  covet,  he  was  then 
left  in  peace.  From  these  plain  facts,  anyone  is 
at  liberty  to  draw  his  own  conclusions.  It  only 
remains  to  be  said  that  this  is  no  isolated,  excep- 
tional case  used  to  point  an  argument.  It  is,  on 
the  contrary,  a  thoroughly  typical  instance.  Only 
the  big  producers  —  and  not  all  of  them,  either  — 
escape  experiences  of  this  sort. 

In  the  old  days,  before  the  Shuberts  strung  out 
a  chain  of  theaters  in  opposition  to  the  syndicate 
houses,  managers  protested  bitterly  against  various 
alleged  abuses.  The  Shubert  competition,  how- 
ever, tended  to  relieve  conditions.  But,  as  the 
Shuberts  gradually  grew  stronger  until  finally  they 
were  as  strong  as  the  syndicate,  complaints  were 
again  heard.  Then  managers  began  shifting 
their  bookings  from  the  syndicate  office  to  the  Shu- 
bert office  and  from  the  Shubert  office  to  the  syndi- 
cate office  and  back  again.  Competition,  taking 
this  form,  once  more  afforded  relief.  Now  the 
two  syndicates  are  working  together  to  a  consider- 
able extent  and  to  their  own  interests,  to  be  sure, 
but  not  especially  after  all,  to  the  interest  of  any- 
body else.  And  there  is  good  reason  to  believe 
that  they  will  get  still  closer  together.  In  that 
case,  competition  will  be  the  first  thing  eliminated. 
After  that,  a  good  many  other  things  will  be  elimi- 
nated —  among  them,  some  producers.  For 
three  or  four,  I  can  already  read  the  handwriting 

83 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

on  the  wall.  Perhaps  they  see  something  in  the 
prospect  to  rejoice  over  but  if  I  were  in  their 
shoes,  I  should  feel  more  anxious  than  pleased. 

To  my  mind,  the  long  and  short  of  the  whole 
matter  is  this :  If  a  man  wants  to  go  into  the  busi- 
ness let  him  go  into  it  alone.  If  he  has  not  $10,- 
ooo  to  lose  he  would  better  stay  out  of  it  alto- 
gether and  save  his  money.  At  best  the  odds  are 
all  against  him.  But  when  he  acts  as  "  angel," 
even  to  a  limited  extent,  turns  his  money  over  to 
some  one  else  and  relies  on  another  person's  judg- 
ment, business  sense,  honesty,  integrity  and  econ- 
omy, in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred  he  will 
lose.  If  he  is  a  millionaire  and  can  afford  to  lose, 
well  and  good.  If  his  capital  is  small,  he  will  get 
more  out  of  it  down  town  in  Wall  Street  than  he 
will  up  town  in  Times  Square. 


84 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  ADVENTURE   TYPICAL 

IT  has  been  my  custom  for  the  last  half  a  dozen 
years  or  so  to  drop  in  at  night  at  a  certain  Broad- 
way cafe.  There,  about  midnight,  I  have  a  bite 
to  eat  before  I  go  on  to  my  home.  It  is  a 
gay  place,  frequented  by  gay  people  —  actors,  ac- 
tresses, men-about-town  and  the  omnipresent 
chorus  girl  whenever  fortune  favors  her  and  she 
falls  in  with  an  escort  who  is  rash  enough  to  ask 
her  where  she  prefers  to  dine.  I  like  it  because  it 
is  gay  —  because  it  is  even  excessively,  garishly 
gay;  I  go  there  on  that  account.  There  is  blessed 
relaxation  in  being  a  part,  albeit  only  a  passive, 
silent  part,  of  the  gayety.  It  takes  my  mind  off 
the  affairs  of  the  day. 

Here  as  usual  I  came  one  Saturday  night,  and 
took  my  accustomed  place  in  a  corner,  gave  my 
order  and  then,  in  a  leisurely  way,  proceeded  to 
take  casual  census  of  the  guests.  My  eye  had  not 
travelled  far,  however,  when  it  came  to  a  sudden 
stop  at  sight  of  Peggy  Hall.  Should  I  have  been 
surprised?  Perhaps  —  still  I  was  not.  The  real 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

surprise  in  some  things  that  we  think  ought  to  be 
surprising  is  the  fact  that  they  are  not  surprising 
at  all.  As  soon  as  my  gaze  rested  on  Peggy,  I 
was  aware  only  that  I  had  even  foreseen  it,  antici- 
pated it  and  that  now,  when  I  beheld  it  actually  be- 
'fore  me,  there  was  nothing  surprising  about  it. 
Why  should  it  have  been?  I  knew  the  life  behind 
the  curtain;  I  knew  the  atmosphere  there;  I  knew 
what  they  produced;  I  knew  the  results.  And  I 
had  known  all  along  that  Peggy  was  bound  sooner 
or  later  to  encounter  just  such  an  experience  as 
was  confronting  her  at  that  very  moment  —  that 
she,  in  common  with  other  girls  in  her  situation, 
must  come  at  last  to  the  inevitable  ordeal  of  this 
acid  test. 

She  was  one  of  a  group  of  half  a  dozen,  three 
men  and,  herself  included,  three  girls.  Like 
Peggy?  her  companions  were  from  the  chorus  at 
the  Circle ;  the  men  were  young  and  of  the  familiar 
Broadway  type.  They  were  near  at  hand, 
Peggy's  back  toward  me,  and,  with  only  a  little  ef- 
fort, I  could  follow  fairly  well  the  drift  of  their 
talk.  In  front  of  them  were  cocktail  glasses, 
Peggy's  half  empty,  and  on  this  their  conversa- 
tion turned. 

"  Come  on,  drink  up.  Be  a  reg'lar  fellow," 
one  young  man  kept  saying  in  monotonous  reitera- 
tion. 

It  was  plain  that  he  and  his  two  companions  had 
86 


THE  ADVENTURE  TYPICAL 

been  drinking  before  the  group  had  assembled  at 
the  cafe. 

"  Go  on,  Peg,"  urged  a  girl,  "  we're  all  waitin' 
for  you." 

Peggy  sipped  sparingly.  The  other  girl  whis- 
pered something  to  the  man  nearest  her.  He 
shook  his  head,  incredulous.  But  the  girl  whis- 
pered again. 

"  That  so  ?  "  he  asked,  still  doubting. 

The  girl  nodded. 

"  Can't  you  see?  "  she  demanded. 

He  shot  an  appraising  glance  at  Peggy  and  then 
leaned  toward  her  across  the  table. 

"  Go  ahead,  Peggy,"  he  said.  "  It's  always  the 
first  swallow  or  two  that  you  feel.  We  all  feel  it 
then.  But  it  disappears  when  you've  drunk  it 
all." 

She  smiled  and  shook  her  head. 

"  No,"  she  protested,  "  I  don't  want  any  more. 
Thank  you  just  the  same." 

"  Aw,  come  on,  be  a  reg'lar  fellow,"  the  first 
man  repeated. 

"  The  rest  of  you  order  —  won't  you?  Don't 
mind  me;  just  let  me  finish  this." 

"  She  don't  like  it,"  interrupted  the  third  man. 
"  She'd  rather  have  something  else.  Here,  Peg, 
let  me  order  you  some  wine.  Give  me  that  card." 

He  took  the  wine  list  and  handed  it  to  Peggy. 

"  Hurry  up,  little  girl.  The  gas  wagon's 
8? 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

waitin'.  Pick  out  what  you  want  and  we'll  have 
another  roun'  and  then  spin  out  the  Drive  and 
back." 

So  it  went  —  five  against  one.  But  Peggy, 
somehow,  seemed  to  realize  her  situation.  Her 
intuition  warned  her. 

The  whispers  of  the  girl  were  not  necessary  to 
inform  a  close  observer  that  Peggy  was  new  to 
such  things.  That  was  obvious.  And  that  ex- 
plains the  part  that  liquor  plays  on  such  occasions 
—  it  is  not  offered  simply  as  a  convivial  cup  and 
nothing  more.  It  is  given  for  the  information  it 
will  impart.  Any  experienced  man-about-town 
can  learn  more  about  a  woman  after  she  has  had 
two  or  three  drinks  in  his  company  than  he  could 
learn  in  a  week  without  their  assistance.  They 
line  the  track  of  the  hours  immediately  ahead  with 
infallible  signals  and  these,  in  turn,  tell  him  plainly 
what  to  expect  and  how  to  proceed.  They  flash 
their  lights,  red,  green  or  white,  and  he  reads  them 
and  heeds  them  and  acts  accordingly. 

It  was  evident  that  Peggy  instinctively  felt  the 
danger  in  the  cocktail.  The  others  knew  she  felt 
it,  too,  and  they  wanted  the  drink  inside  where  it 
would  fight  her  and  not  outside  where  it  would 
fight  them.  It  was  their  ally  only  when  it  was 
drunk.  But  Peggy  fenced  gracefully  and  success- 
fully. Still,  I  could  fancy  she  was  wondering  how 
the  contest  would  end  and  was  feeling,  brave 
88 


THE  ADVENTURE  TYPICAL 

though  her  appearance,  the  need  for  help.  I 
watched  unobserved  —  the  old,  old  game,  Broad- 
way seeking  its  prey,  stalking  its  quarry,  running 
it  down.  I  watched  until  I  thought  I  could  tell, 
from  the  tired  droop  of  Peggy's  shoulders,  that 
she  was  about  at  the  end  of  her  resources,  and 
then  I  made  up  my  mind  to  interfere.  But  no 
way  suggested  itself  until  one  of  the  men  provided 
me  with  a  plan  by  going  to  the  telephone  booth.  I 
slipped  out  and  followed  him.  At  the  door  of  the 
booth  I  accosted  him.  I  said  to  him  in  substance 
that  I  wanted  to  avoid  any  embarrassing  scene,  but 
that  one  of  the  young  women  in  his  party  would 
have  to  be  excused.  He  was  immediately  and 
completely  and  bristlingly  belligerent.  I  am  not 
a  small  man,  however,  and  there  is  nothing  frail 
looking  about  my  physique;  so  he  thought  better 
of  it  and  changed  his  attitude.  Besides,  I  ached  to 
hit  him,  I  fairly  shook  with  the  desire  to  seize  him, 
shake  him,  wipe  up  the  floor  with  him  and  then 
kick  him  out.  Probably  I  showed  it,  too.  At 
any  rate,  he  became  very  tractable  and  agreed  to 
see  Peggy  to  a  taxi  and  to  send  her  home. 

I  watched  him  return  to  the  table  and  whisper 
to  Peggy  and  I  saw  her  rise,  say  good-by  and  fol- 
low him  to  the  door.  He  did  what  he  agreed  to 
do  and  Dick  Hall's  daughter  went  home  alone  in 
the  motor  car.  I  smiled  when  I  saw  the  expres- 
sion of  amazement  on  the  faces  of  his  companions 
89 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

when  he  returned  to  the  table  without  her.  What 
he  told  them  I  do  not  know  and  I  do  not  care. 

Three  days  later,  Peggy  was  in  my  office. 

"  I  am  going  home,"  she  said. 

And  that  was  all.  I  did  not  press  her  for  any 
explanation  nor  did  I,  on  my  part,  volunteer  any 
information.  If  Peggy  reads  this  she  will  learn 
for  the  first  time  how  her  temporary  guardian,  re- 
miss as  he  was  most  of  the  time,  came  to  her 
rescue  on  one  occasion  at  least. 

"  Peggy,"  said  I  in  answer,  "  I  am  going  home 
too.  Stay  on  until  it's  time  for  me  to  leave  and 
we'll  all  go  back  together." 

There  is  no  accounting  for  the  whims  of  young 
women.  Peggy  Hall  stepped  around  my  desk  and 
kissed  me. 


90 


CHAPTER  XI 

A   BACKWARD  GLANCE 

CHANGES  come  rapidly  in  the  theater.  For 
the  most  part,  they  are  improvements,  too.  To 
be  sure,  the  more  recent  years  have  developed  no 
transcendent  geniuses  among  either  playwrights  or 
players,  but  they  have  added  some  names  to  the 
theatrical  roll  of  honor  that  will  gain  in  impor- 
tance, I  think,  as  time  provides  a  better  per- 
spective for  our  judgment  of  them.  They  have 
done  more  for  the  stage  than  we  can  realize  until 
a  new  decade  comes  to  apprise  us  with  its  inevi- 
table reflection  of  their  influence.  Then  again, 
taking  everything  into  consideration,  the  general 
average  of  plays  and  playing  is  better;  the  general 
standard  is  higher.  More  ability  is  required  to- 
day to  gain  substantial  success  as  playwright  or 
player  than  was  required  fifteen  or  twenty  years 
ago.  This  is  due  undoubtedly  to  a  more  exacting 
public  taste  and  a  more  discriminating  public  judg- 
ment, which  is  to  say  that  the  spectator  also  has 
progressed.  He  is  not  so  easily  satisfied. 

I  see  these  things  not  as  critic,  nor  as  play- 
wright, player  or  spectator ;  they  come  to  me  in  my 
91 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

capacity  as  manager.  They  come  directly,  day  by 
day,  as  returns  in  the  form  of  box  office  state- 
ments. I  get  them  not  as  opinions  but  as  figures. 
This  may  seem  to  be  a  surprising  confession  to 
come  from  a  manager  and  if  it  seems  a  little  con- 
fusing also  it  might  be  remembered  that  while  our 
stage  is  commercialized  to  the  last  degree,  it  does 
not  follow  that  it  is  wisely  commercialized.  It 
makes  money  for  those  who  control  it  but  if  those 
in  control  were  more  competent  to  understand  the 
signs  and  interpret  the  facts  and  proceed  accord- 
ingly, it  might  increase  the  profits  considerably. 
Indeed  the  real  reactionary  influence  of  the  last 
ten  years,  the  check  to  progress,  the  handicap,  has 
been  not  so  much  the  mere  commercialization  of 
the  stage  as  the  manner  of  the  commercialization 
and  the  character  and  ambition  of  the  men  who  de- 
vised the  manner. 

However,  bad  as  the  system  is,  some  good  has 
come  out  of  it.  It  did  much,  for  instance,  to  de- 
velop our  native  drama.  Those  in  control,  of 
course,  had  no  definite  intention  of  encouraging  the 
native  drama.  What  they  did  in  this  respect  they 
did  by  accident.  They  had  tried  to  outdo  each 
other  in  the  matter  of  playhouse  control  and  they 
came  abruptly  one  day  to  the  realization  that  they 
had  many  playhouses  and  few  plays  and  that  Lon- 
don and  Paris  and  Vienna  could  not  supply  the 
demand.  So  the  native  dramatist  began  to  get  his 
92 


A  BACKWARD  GLANCE 


hearing.  They  tried  him  as  a  desperate  remedy 
for  a  desperate  situation.  And  since  then  he  has 
gained  a  position  of  his  own.  He  has  established 
his  drama  and  it  stands  today  distinguished  and 
recognized  for  qualities  entirely  peculiar  to  itself 
and  unmistakably  characteristic  of  its  nationality. 
Whether,  as  a  whole,  it  is  the  equal  of  the  con- 
temporaneous British  drama,  I  will  not  presume  to 
say.  I  only  pronounce  it  different  —  a  distinct 
school.  It  has  developed  its  own  style  and  its  own 
details  of  technique  and  these  in  turn  have  brought 
about  changes  in  the  style  and  the  technique  of 
acting. 

So  much  for  this  aspect  of  it.  In  the  ten  years 
that  I  have  been  in  the  business  I  have  seen  an 
amazing  improvement  in  the  mechanics  of  the 
stage.  For  that  matter,  in  the  last  decade  even 
the  architecture  of  our  playhouses  has  been 
changed.  We  incline  today  toward  the  smaller 
and  more  "  intimate  "  theater,  with  the  gallery 
abolished  and  a  pronounced  disposition  to  abolish 
the  balcony  also.  Of  course,  the  gallery  really 
abolished  itself;  it  left  us.  It  went  away  to  the 
movies,  and  the  balcony  now  is  showing  signs  of 
similar  desertion.  So  it,  too,  may  pass. 

These  same  ten  years  have  also  witnessed  the 

wonderful    development   of    the    movies.     They 

have  seen  them  come  and  conquer,  the  greatest, 

swiftest,  most  astonishing  conquest  in  the  whole 

93 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

history  of  the  world's  amusements.  And  if  any- 
one imagines  that  the  movies  have  not  brought 
changes  to  the  legitimate  theater  and  to  the  tech- 
nique of  player's  and  playwright's  art  he  is  no  in- 
terpreter of  the  signs  to  be  seen  on  every  hand. 

I  used  to  hear  it  said  —  and  I  said  myself  — 
that  the  movies  would  not  draw  patronage  from 
the  theater  but,  on  the  contrary,  would  add  to  its 
patronage.  I  still  hear  the  same  thing  said  but 
long  ago  I  abandoned  the  theory.  Facts  disprove 
it.  The  patronage  that  the  movies  have  made  has 
been  for  the  movies.  It  begins  there  and  ends 
there.  The  legitimate  theater  has  not  benefited; 
it  has  suffered  instead.  And  I  think  it  will  suf- 
fer still  more  in  the  future.  It  only  remains  for 
some  enterprising  manager  to  stretch  a  chain  of 
movie  theaters  across  the  country,  book  them  as 
the  syndicate  or  the  Shuberts  book  their  houses, 
establish  a  reputation  for  showing  in  them  only 
the  best  pictures  produced  throughout  the  world, 
keep  the  standard  high  and  the  prices  low  and  the 
small  legitimate  theater,  minus  gallery  and  minus 
balcony,  too,  will  be  as  ample  in  seating  capacity 
as  it  is  now  intimate  in  atmosphere.  I  shall  not 
be  surprised  when  such  a  system  of  movie  theaters 
is  organized.  It  is  bound  to  come.  I  am  sur- 
prised now  that  it  has  been  delayed  as  long  as  it 
has. 

In  the  ten  years  there  have  been  improvements 
94 


A  BACKWARD  GLANCE 


in  scenery.  American  scene  painters  here  and 
there  are  beginning  to  be  artists.  Some  even  are 
bold  enough  to  exhibit  signs  of  incipient  rebellion 
against  precedent  and,  while  it  is,  perhaps,  a 
good  deal  to  hope  for,  it  is  barely  possible  that 
they  may  yet  emancipate  themselves  from  their 
slavery  to  models  and  methods  of  the  past  and  in 
its  place  establish  independence  and  originality. 
Something  to  the  same  effect  is  to  be  said  of  the 
few  men  who  profess  to  be  experts  on  stage  light- 
ing. They  are  too  easily  satisfied.  Still,  prog- 
ress in  this  important  department  of  the  theater 
has  been  marked  and  there  is  promise  of  more  im- 
provement to  come. 

So,  in  brief,  a  few  of  the  changes.  They  are 
more  substantial  than  enumeration  makes  them 
appear.  If  anyone  doubts  this  let  him  attend  a 
revival  of  some  old  play  popular  a  dozen  years 
ago.  William  A.  Brady  has  a  singular  fondness 
for  occasionally  supplying  a  curiosity  of  the  sort 
—  by  preference  something  that  he  once  acted  in 
himself.  One  of  them  that  I  recall  was  "  Rose- 
dale,"  the  most  popular  play  of  its  day.  But  its 
day  was  fifty  years  ago.  Lester  Wallick  pro- 
duced it  and  played  it  in  the  early  6o's.  Brady 
played  in  it  years  later  when  it  was  still  a  reliable 
standby  in  stock.  His  associations  with  "  Rose- 
dale  "  were  probably  pleasant  ones  and  recollec- 
tions of  these  no  doubt  influenced  his  judgment. 
95 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

He  thought  Broadway  would  be  as  pleased  as  he 
to  see  the  old  play  once  more  played.  But  it  was 
not.  Brady  came  very  near  enjoying  a  monopoly 
of  the  pleasure  supplied  by  "  Rosedale  "  without 
anybody's  showing  the  slightest  disposition  to  dis- 
pute it  with  him.  He  had  it  to  himself. 

Very  quickly  he  wrapped  it  up  and  sent  it  to 
the  storehouse.  And  when  I  think  of  this  Brady 
venture  I  am  reminded  of  the  ubiquitous  old 
gentleman  who  is  always  gravely  shaking  his  head 
and  sighing  for  "  those  good  old  comedies  "  of 
yesterday.  Compared  with  the  comedies  of  to- 
day they  were  probably  very  bad  old  comedies  but 
there  is  no  convincing  him  of  this.  He  is  a  very 
obstinate  old  gentleman  who,  like  as  not,  thinks 
that  if  he  could  only  sit  down  to  the  sort  of  meal 
that  was  served  to  him  in  his  youth  he  would  eat 
with  the  relish  of  youth.  But  that  is  only  an  illu- 
sion; he  sighs  for  a  cook  when  he  ought  to  be 
sighing  for  an  appetite.  And  when  he  grieves 
for  the  old  comedies  what  he  really  craves  is  his 
old  capacity  for  enjoyment,  the  zest  of  ready 
laughter  and  the  freshness  of  youth. 

As  the  seasons  come  and  go,  there  are  changes, 
too,  in  the  ranks  of  the  players.  Some  go  for- 
ward and  some  go  backward  —  only  a  few  stand 
still.  Protest  against  the  practice  as  the  actors 
may  —  and  do  —  managers  still  fill  roles  and  will 
continue  to  fill  them  by  selecting  players  of  a 


A  BACKWARD  GLANCE 


"  type  "  corresponding  to  the  "  type  "  of  the  part 
to  be  played.  This  increases  the  changes  among 
the  players;  it  adds  to  the  inevitable  changes  that 
time  and  circumstances  are  bound  to  make. 
Actors,  of  course,  think  that  managers  ought  to 
choose  talent  instead  of  type,  but  the  actors  are 
wrong  and  the  managers  are  right.  Audiences 
today  demand  verisimilitude;  they  do  not  want  a 
tall  man  in  a  short  man's  part  nor  a  fat  man  cast 
in  a  lean  man's  role.  No  more  do  they  want 
feminine  forty  playing  ingenue  twenty.  Nor  will 
they  have  it. 

But  managers  are  in  error  when  they  assume 
that  an  actor  who  makes  a  success  in  a  certain  role 
of  a  certain  type  can  play  no  other  role.  And  the 
actor's  protest  against  this  phase  of  the  subject 
is  well  founded.  However,  managerial  risks  are 
numerous  enough  at  best  and  if  managers  decline 
to  experiment  they  are  not  without  excuse.  It  is 
hard,  though,  on  the  actor  who  needs  employment 
but  finds  no  market  for  his  talent  because  he  has 
established  a  reputation  for  one  particular  line  of 
parts  and  that  "  type  "  is  not  at  the  moment  in  de- 
mand. 

It  is  especially  hard  on  the  ingenue.  I  have 
seen  many  of  them  come  and  many  of  them  go, 
Time's  relentless  hand  ringing  down  the  curtain 
for  all  of  them  as  girlishness  passes  and  the  bloom 
fades.  It  is  a  sad  time  for  any  woman  when  she 
97 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

suddenly  realizes  that  youth  has  departed,  but  for 
the  actress  of  the  ingenue  roles  it  is  both  sad  and 
tragic.  It  means  as  often  as  not  the  end  of  her 
career.  She  could  play  other  roles,  no  doubt,  and 
play  them  well,  but  the  managers  know  her  only 
as  an  ingenue.  She  has  a  reputation  as  an  in- 
genue; as  an  ingenue  the  public  accepted  her  and 
applauded  her  and  pronounced  her  a  success. 
The  manager  is  afraid  to  tamper  with  what  Fate 
has  decreed  and  the  public  has  endorsed.  So  the 
curtain  descends,  sometimes,  it  is  true,  to  rise 
again  on  a  new  career  newly  begun  with  the  in- 
genue in  maturer  parts  as  prominent  as  those  aban- 
doned. But  that  is  the  exception  and  not  the 
rule. 

Managers,  also,  come  and  go.  With  many  the 
stay  is  short;  some  linger  hopefully  though  pain- 
fully through  a  season  or  two  and  some  pass  de- 
spairingly though  mercifully  in  a  single  night. 
They  are  managers  at  eight  p.  M.  and  bankrupts 
at  eleven.  Some,  on  the  other  hand,  weather  the 
vicissitudes  and  rise  to  positions  of  importance. 
Yet  of  all  those  who  were  leaders  in  the  business 
ten  years  ago,  whose  fame  was  national  or  even 
international,  only  a  few  continue  in  the  same 
prominence  today.  Among  them,  of  course,  and 
the  most  conspicuous  are  David  Belasco,  George 
C.  Tyler,  William  A.  Brady,  Henry  W.  Savage, 
the  Shuberts  and  Klaw  and  Erlanger. 


A  BACKWARD  GLANCE 


Of  these,  Belasco  is  the  master.  Time,  I  think, 
will  write  his  name  large  in  the  history  of  the 
American  theater  for,  ridicule  him  as  we  may  for 
what  we  consider  his  posing  and  posturing,  no 
producer  in  America,  past  or  present,  has  done 
more  for  the  art  of  the  playhouse  than  he  and  none 
so  far  has  contributed  more  than  he  to  its  future 
development.  He  has  been  to  the  technique  of 
production  what  Ibsen  was  to  the  technique  of 
drama.  And  if  I  were  asked  to  sum  up  his 
achievement  briefly,  I  should  say  that  it  rests  in 
his  discovering  to  producer,  player  and  playgoer 
the  tremendous  value  of  detail.  By  giving  proper 
emphasis  —  no  more  and  no  less  —  to  a  single  de- 
tail, I  have  known  Belasco  to  build  up  a  scene  in 
rehearsal  where  others  saw  nothing  at  all  and  I 
have  known  that  scene  to  make  a  success  of  the 
production. 

Tyler,  whose  individual  personality  was  long 
concealed  in  the  firm  name  of  Liebler  and  Com- 
pany, is  second  only  to  Belasco  as  master  of  detail. 
And  Tyler,  I  believe,  is  Belasco's  logical  successor. 
Comparatively  young,  from  the  Middle  West  and 
still  of  it,  he  is  a  man  of  high  ideals  and  big  ideas. 
With  these  he  combines  good  sense,  originality, 
ability  and  daring;  he  believes  in  producing  plays 
worth  while  and  plays  of  real  merit.  That  he  has 
encountered  a  good  many  financial  difficulties  is  not 
in  my  opinion  a  reflection  upon  Tyler  but  upon  the 
99 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

theater-going  public.  I  remember  meeting  him 
one  afternoon  and  hearing  from  his  lips  some 
surprisingly  high  praise  for  a  play  he  had  just 
read. 

"  It's  bound  to  make  a  fortune,"  he  said. 

"  When  do  you  put  it  on?  "  I  asked. 

"  I'm  not  putting  it  on,"  he  replied.  "  It's  a 
big  melodrama  and  I'm  getting  away  from  melo- 
drama. I've  put  my  standard  up  a  notch  and  I 
mean  to  keep  it  there." 

And  keep  it  there  he  did.  His  opinion  of  the 
manuscript  he  had  read  was  more  than  justified  for 
there  has  not  been  in  a  quarter  of  a  century  a 
greater  success  financially.  "  Within  the  Law," 
for  that  was  the  melodrama,  has  made  I  suppose, 
a  million  dollars. 

To  show  how  even  the  most  astute  of  the  pro- 
ducers occasionally  go  far  astray  in  judgment, 
Brady  produced  "  Within  the  Law  "  and,  after  a 
few  weeks  of  indifferent  business,  lost  his  confi- 
dence in  it  and  sold  it  outright  to  Selwyn;  and 
Selwyn  —  who  is  himself  one  of  the  newcomers 
in  the  field  and  a  producer  of  exceptional  promise 
—  reaped  the  golden  harvest  that  Tyler  had  pre- 
dicted, that  Brady  doubted  and  that  Selwyn,  with 
clearer  vision  in  his  turn,  foresaw.  But  Brady,  if 
he  missed  it  in  this  instance,  does  not  miss  it  often. 
Melodrama  has  made  a  fortune  for  Brady.  Yet  I 
believe  he  will  go  down  in  the  theatrical  annals  as 
100 


A  BACKWARD  GLANCE 


the  producer  of  his  day  who  did  more  than  any  of 
the  others  to  keep  old-fashioned  sentiment  on  the 
stage.  Brady,  personally,  has  a  deep  regard  for 
this  homely  sentiment  and  he  has,  too,  a  genuine 
reverence  for  the  theater  as  an  institution.  He 
would  probably  deny  this,  gruffly  and  immediately, 
but  there  is  a  good  deal  of  pose  about  Brady's 
gruffness.  He  likes  to  be  known  as  a  kind  of 
rough  diamond,  but  my  acquaintance  with  him  has 
been  long  enough  and  intimate  enough  to  convince 
me  that  most  of  the  roughness  is  assumed.  It  is 
nine-tenths  bluff  and  extends  no  deeper  than  the  sur- 
face. No  matinee  girl  ever  had  a  tenderer  heart. 

Charles  Frohman,  I  believe,  will  be  written 
down  simply  as  the  great  importer.  No  manager 
has  translated  to  the  American  stage  more  foreign 
productions  than  did  he  before  his  tragic  and  un- 
timely death  and  none  has  done  less  for  the  Ameri- 
can drama  than  did  he.  As  a  producer,  he  was 
more  a  trader  than  a  creator,  though,  in  recent 
years,  largely  because  available  foreign  products 
have  been  scarce  and  competition  for  them  keen, 
he  occasionally  produced  a  play  of  domestic  origin. 
That  was  not  his  policy,  however.  Savage  has 
done  his  share  of  importing,  too,  but  he  will  be 
known  in  years  to  come  not  for  this  so  much  as  for 
genuine  good  he  has  done  for  the  musical  produc- 
tions of  his  day. 

As  for  the  Shuberts,  they  are  wholesale  pur- 
101 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

veyors  of  entertainment  —  nothing  more  and 
nothing  less.  They  produce  whatever  promises 
to  be  profitable  —  from  vaudeville  to  Shakespeare. 
They  have  proceeded  on  the  principle  that  if  they 
can  have  quality  with  quantity,  very  good  but  quan- 
tity they  must  have  in  any  event. 

Klaw  and  Erlanger  are  the  theatrical  organi- 
zers. They  were  the  first  to  nationalize  the 
playhouse  business  and  to  them  belongs  the  credit 
of  evolving  system  out  of  chaos  —  and  the  conse- 
quences. As  producers  they  count  for  little,  but 
their  service  to  the  box-office  has  been  inestimable 
—  to  the  art  of  the  theater  it  has  been  insignifi- 
cant. 

Among  the  producers  of  today  whose  advent  in 
the  field  is  of  later  date,  George  M.  Cohan  is  pre- 
eminently the  leader.  Winthrop  Ames  is  another 
of  proved  ability,  but  Ames,  it  strikes  me,  has  al- 
ready shown  us  not  only  what  he  can  do  but  the 
best  he  can  do,  while  Cohan,  with  remarkable 
achievements  both  as  playwright  and  as  producer 
already  to  his  credit,  seems  to  be  only  beginning  to 
show  what  he  can  do.  Incidentally,  I  know  of  no 
men  in  the  business  who  show  greater  contrast  than 
these  two.  Their  differences  appear,  of  course,  in 
their  works.  Ames'  productions  have  a  finished 
but  feminine  quality;  Cohan's  are  like  the  adoles- 
cent youth,  virile,  strong,  with  a  strength  not  yet 
under  full  control  and  crude  on  that  account  but 
102 


A  BACKWARD  GLANCE 


still  powerful  and  rich  in  promise.     Ames  is  the 
aristocrat;  Cohan  is  the  democrat. 

But  all  this  is  merely  opinion  —  only  my  per- 
sonal estimate  of  these  men.  It  counts  for  noth- 
ing more.  Nor  have  I  mentioned  all  the  promi- 
nent producers,  either  —  I  do  not  know  enough 
about  some  of  them  to  justify  forming  an  opinion. 
But  this  I  do  know  about  all  of  them  —  they  begin 
to  fail  as  producers  as  they  leave  their  youth  be- 
hind them.  To  grow  old  means  disaster  for  them 
no  less  than  for  the  player.  And  this  is  only 
logical  after  all,  for  the  playhouse  is  more  for  the 
young  than  for  the  old  —  the  average  age  of  the 
playgoer  is  under  twenty  —  and  it  demands  of 
those  who  write  for  it,  produce  for  it  and  act  for 
it  that  they  have  the  eyes  and  the  hearts  and  the 
visions  and  the  feelings  of  youth. 

Returning  to  fact,  the  last  ten  years  have  re- 
corded still  another  change  in  the  theatrical  situa- 
tion that  is  both  significant  and  important.  I  have 
spoken  briefly  of  the  change  in  the  public's  taste 
and  judgment.  Its  attitude  has  changed  as  well 
and  now  it  is  interesting  itself  in  a  serious  study 
of  the  art  of  the  theater.  Today  many  colleges 
and  some  high  schools  include  a  study  of  the  drama 
in  their  curriculums.  Clubs  for  the  same  pur- 
pose have  been  formed  and,  as  further  evidence 
of  the  scope  of  the  movement,  we  have  the  Drama 
League. 

103 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

Good  has  been  accomplished  by  the  Drama 
League  and  no  doubt  much  more  good  will  come 
of  it  in  the  future.  But  if  it  entertains  the  notion 
that  it  wields  any  influence  through  the  box-office, 
it  is  deceived.  Whether  it  could  do  so  now  and 
fails  because  it  is  not  efficiently  managed  or 
whether  it  may  later  on  as  its  membership  increases 
and  it  learns  better  how  to  apply  its  influence  I 
cannot  say.  I  only  know  that,  from  the  box-office 
point  of  view,  managers  neither  respect  it  nor  fear 
it.  They  laugh  at  it. 

There  is  reason  for  this,  too.  Personally,  I 
have  known  it  to  bulletin  productions  of  ours  with 
unqualified  approval  and  praise  without  the  slight- 
est encouraging  effect  on  the  box-office  receipts. 
In  Chicago,  on  one  occasion,  we  produced  a  play 
that  gained  a  bulletin  endorsement  of  the  most  en- 
thusiastic sort.  Before  the  League  issued  it,  we 
were  playing  to  $200  and  $250  a  performance  — 
not  enough  to  pay  the  salaries  of  the  company. 
After  the  League  issued  it  we  kept  on  playing  to 
$200  and  $250  a  performance.  And  we  sent  the 
production  to  the  storehouse.  On  another  occa- 
sion, in  a  city  famed  for  its  culture,  we  employed 
unusual  measures  to  interest  the  members  of  the 
local  Drama  League.  We  had  a  production  of 
which  we  were  genuinely  proud  —  from  the  pen 
of  an  author  of  international  repute,  played  by  an 
excellent  company  and  produced  with  scenery  that 
104 


A  BACKWARD  GLANCE 


reflected  for  the  first  time  on  the  American  stage 
the  method  and  style  of  the  German  impression- 
istic school.  Besides  acquainting  League  members 
with  these  facts  by  special  letters  addressed  to 
them  personally,  the  author  was  induced  to  lecture 
and  the  members  were  invited  to  hear  him. 

They  came  —  fifteen  hundred  of  them.  And, 
passing  out,  the  fifteen  hundred  bought  exactly 
$i  i.oo  worth  of  tickets.  We  spent  over  $300.00 
on  the  League  and  the  $11.00  represented  about 
all  of  the  returns  on  the  investment.  Of  course,  it 
may  have  been  a  bad  lecture.  I  did  not  hear  it 
but  I  know  the  author  better  now  and  I  am  per- 
fectly willing  to  admit  it  was  a  bad  lecture.  But, 
even  so,  the  results  were  disappointing.  The 
League  bulletin  praised  the  play,  players  and 
production  and  even  producers  —  praised  them 
highly  —  but  the  League  members  paid  the  bulle- 
tin no  heed.  We  played  two  weeks  to  a  weekly 
loss  of  $2500,  went  next  to  a  city  not  famed  for 
its  culture  and  where  no  Drama  League  has 
yet  appeared  to  guide  the  benighted  public  and 
played  several  weeks  to  good  business  and  enthusi- 
astic audiences. 

But,  commendable  as  these  two  plays  were,  they 
were  not  popular.  The  Drama  League  did  not 
endorse  them  unwisely ;  it  merely  endorsed  them  to 
no  avail.  Nor  are  these  two  cases  exceptions;  I 
could  name  a  score  like  them.  But  all  lead  to  the 
105 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

same  conclusion  and  this  in  turn  squares  with  the 
history  of  the  theater  all  the  way  from  Bankside  to 
Broadway  —  there  is  no  popularizing  an  unpopu- 
lar play.  It  may  be  **  artistic,"  it  may  be 
"  ethical,"  it  may  "  deserve  success  "  and  so  on 
throughout  the  whole  list  of  the  conventional  re- 
marks applying  to  such  cases,  but  if  the  public  does 
not  like  it  the  public  will  not  go  to  see  it.  It 
wastes  its  sweetness  on  the  desert  air.  On  the 
other  hand,  a  popular  play,  one  that  has  caught 
the  public's  fancy,  devoid  of  every  vestige  of  art 
and  ethics  though  it  may  be,  may  go  unbulletined 
or  it  may  even  be  condemned  and  the  box-office 
will  never  be  aware  that  it  has  been  either  ignored 
completely  or  damned  utterly. 


106 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE    LAST  ACT 

INTELLIGENT  criticism  in  the  columns  of  the 
daily  press  and  in  the  pages  of  the  nation's  peri- 
odicals is,  in  the  final  analysis,  the  drama's  truest 
friend  and  the  public's  most  reliable  guide.  One 
fair  criticism,  recording  the  judgment  of  an  ex- 
perienced critic,  is  worth  a  whole  season's  output 
of  bulletins.  It  carries  more  weight,  reaches  more 
people,  speaks  with  greater  authority  and  is  usu- 
ally of  more  immediate  and  permanent  value  both 
to  the  playhouse  and  to  the  public. 

I  have  known  a  good  many  critics  in  my  time 
—  not  personally,  but  by  their  works.  Some  of 
these  have  been  able  men,  wise  men,  performing 
a  good  service  and  performing  it  well.  Some 
have  been  fools.  I  know  a  good  many  critics  to- 
day, and  I  divide  them  now  as  in  the  past  —  the 
wise  on  one  hand,  the  fools  on  the  other.  For 
the  critic  who  knows  his  business,  who  knows  what 
he  is  writing  about,  who  has  authority  because  he 
has  knowledge  and  experience  as  well  as  taste  and 
judgment,  I  have  the  deepest  respect.  I  value  his 
opinion  and  I  envy  his  influence.  Few  positions 
107 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

in  the  whole  field  of  journalism  are  more  impor- 
tant or  more  responsible  than  his.  Critics  of 
music,  pictures  and  literature  can  never  do  as 
much  for  their  readers  nor  do  it  as  quickly  as  the 
critic  of  the  drama.  And  that  is  why  his  position 
is  important  and  his  responsibility  great. 

There  is  one  criticism  of  critics,  however  that 
I  want  to  make  and  in  making  it  I  voice  the  opinion 
of  the  playwright  and  the  player  as  well  as  that 
of  the  producer.  Too  few  of  them  know  the 
stage.  They  do  not  know  its  mechanical  possi- 
bilities or  its  mechanical  limitations.  Yet  it  is 
their  duty  to  know  both  and,  if  they  did  know 
both,  stage  effects,  lighting  and  scenery  on  the 
American  stage  would  be  improved  —  a  higher 
standard  would  be  set.  They  would  know  acting 
better,  too,  and  nine-tenths  of  them,  as  their  criti- 
cisms show,  are  in  need  of  vast  improvement  in 
this  respect.  Their  practice  is  to  devote  half  a 
column  or  more  to  a  critical  resume  of  the  play 
and  not  more  than  a  meager  paragraph  to  the 
playing.  They  are  adept  in  judging  the  play- 
wright's work  but  they  are  evidently  pitifully  in- 
competent to  appraise  the  player's.  Apparently 
they  do  not  know  acting  at  all  —  that  is,  as  an  art. 

To  give  one  more  humble  opinion.     I  look 

upon  Louis  V.  DeFoe,  of  the  New  York  World, 

and  James  O'Donnell  Bennett,  still,  I  hope,  the 

critic  of  the  Chicago  Tribune,  as  the  best  dramatic 

108 


THE  LAST  ACT 


critics  in  America.  Honest,  fair,  sympathetic,  al- 
ways serving  the  higher  ideals  of  the  theater,  these 
two  men,  through  many  seasons,  have  held  firm  to 
the  best  and  the  most  substantial  and  permanent 
while  others  have  been  misled  by  passing  fads. 
Since  I  know  the  first  only  slightly  and  the  latter 
not  at  all  —  I  think  I  have  seen  him  once  —  I 
judge  them  wholly  by  what  they  have  been  writing 
for  the  last  ten  years.  Both  could  be  more  con- 
structive than  they  are;  neither  could  be  more  sin- 
cere. And  it  seats  me  more  firmly  than  ever  on 
my  hobby  when  I  reflect  that  both  are  products  of 
the  Middle  West  whence  comes  —  because  it  is 
still  a  "  cleaner,  greener  land" — the  most  of  all 
that  is  best  in  our  theater  today.  I  have  a  high 
regard  for  these  men,  and  all  such  men,  and  for 
the  work  they  do  and  the  service  they  render. 

But,  for  the  man  who  writes  about  the  theater 
without  knowing  the  theater;  for  the  man  who 
would  rather  be  clever  in  style  than  thorough  in 
judgment;  for  the  man  who  glorifies  theories  and 
spurns  facts;  for  the  man  with  no  honest  opinion 
of  his  own,  right  or  wrong,  but  who  cravenly  para- 
phrases the  opinion  of  another;  for  the  man  who 
thinks  but  is  afraid  to  say  what  he  thinks;  for  the 
little  man  of  big  conceit  who  never  thinks  at  all; 
for  the  man  who  would  be  critic,  who  poses  as 
critic,  who  serves  as  critic,  but  who  does  not  know 
and  who  knows  that  he  does  not  know  and  never 
109 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  THE  THEATER 

will  know  and  never  can  know,  yet  who  lives  and 
writes  the  lie  of  pretending  to  know  —  for  all 
these  —  and  they  are  numerous  —  I  have  only 
contempt.  And  it  is  only  contempt,  too,  that  I 
have  for  the  player  who  says  he  never  reads  what 
the  critics  say  of  his  acting,  but  who  does  never- 
theless and  only  fails  to  profit  from  what  he  reads, 
for  the  producer  who  fawns  on  them  when  they 
praise  his  successes  and  denounces  them  as  knaves 
or  fools  or  both  when  they  condemn  his  failures, 
and  for  the  playwright  who  pretends  to  believe  — 
only  so  long  as  they  decline  to  endorse  him  —  that 
critics  cannot  judge  plays  at  all  until  they  have 
written  plays. 

But  from  all  of  this  and  further  thought  of  it 
as  part  of  my  daily  work,  from  consideration  of  it 
and  analysis  of  it  only  to  the  practical  end  that  the 
conclusions  may  somehow  be  transmuted  into  dol- 
lars, I  turn  finally  away.  I  have  given  to  the 
theater  in  the  only  way  it  was  open  to  me  to  serve 
it,  the  best  I  had  in  me.  I  have  crowded  twenty 
years'  work  into  ten.  I  am  weary  and  I  am 
done. 

I  went  the  other  day  to  a  playhouse  that  was 
completed  and  opened  ten  years  ago.  I  remem- 
ber its  first  night  —  it  was  also  my  first  night.  I 
recall  the  play,  the  players,  the  audience.  Today 
its  seats  are  empty,  its  doors  are  closed.  To- 
morrow it  becomes  a  picture  house.  I  sent  the 
no 


THE  LAST  ACT 


man  with  me  to  the  stage  and,  for  a  moment,  I  sat 
alone  in  one  of  the  dusty  seats  —  the  very  one  I 
occupied  on  that  opening  night.  I  could  recall 
its  location  and  pick  it  out  as  though  it  were  only 
yesterday  that  I  occupied  it.  All  was  quiet  and  I 
fell  into  a  revery  .  .  . 

"  Are  you  there,  sir?  "  called  the  man  from  the 
stage. 

"  Yes,"  I  replied. 

"  Shall  I  give  you  any  light?  "  he  asked. 

"  No,"  said  I,  "  drop  the  curtain  and  go  home." 
And  in  the  shadows  and  the  silence  I  thought  my 
words  were  echoed  back  to  me  —  drop  the  cur- 
tain and  go  home. 


THE   END 


III 


A    SELECTED    LIST 

OF 

DRAMATIC 
LITERATURE 


PUBLISHED  BY 

STEWART  &  KIDD  COMPANY 
CINCINNATI 


STEWART  &  KIDD  COMPANY 


Four  Plays  of  the  Free  Theater 

Francois  de  Curel's  The  Fossils 
Jean  Jullien's  The  Serenade 

Georges  de  Porto-Riche's 

Francoise'  Luck 

Georges  Ancey's  The  Dupe 

Translated  with  an  introduction  on  Antoine  and  Theatre 
Libre  by  BARRETT  H.  CLARK.  Preface  by  BRIEUX,  of  the 
French  Academy,  and  a  Sonnet  by  EDMOND  ROSTAND. 

The  Review  of  Reviews  says: 

"A  lengthy  introduction,  which  is  a  gem  of  con- 
densed information." 

H.  L.  Mencken  (in  the  Smart  Set)  says: 

"Here  we  have,  not  only  skilful  playwriting,  but 
also  sound  literature." 

Brander  Matthews  says: 

"The  book  is  welcome  to  all  students  of  the  modern 
stage.  It  contains  the  fullest  account  of  the  activities 
of  Antoine's  Free  Theater  to  be  found  anywhere — 
even  in  French." 

The  Chicago  Tribune  says: 

"Mr.  Clark's  translations,  with  their  accurate  and 
comprehensive  prefaces,  are  necessary  to  anyone  in- 
terested in  modern  drama  ...  If  the  American  reader 
will  forget  Yankee  notions  of  morality  ...  if  the 
reader  will  assume  the  French  point  of  view,  this  book 
will  prove  a  rarely  valuable  experience.  Mr.  Clark 
has  done  this  important  task  excellently." 

Handsomely  Bound.    I2mo.     Cloth Net,  $1.50 


DRAMATIC  LITERATURE 


Contemporary  French  Dramatists 

By  BARRETT  H.  CLARK 

/»  "Contemporary  French  Dramatists"  Mr.  Barrett  H. 
Clark,  author  of  "The  Continental  Drama  of  Today," 
"The  British  and  American  Drama  of  Today,"  translator 
of  "Four  Plays  of  the  Free  Theater,"  and  of  various  plays 
of  Donnay,  Hervieu,  Lemaitre,  Sardou,  Lavedan,  etc.,  has 
contributed  the  first  collection  of  studies  on  the  modern 
French  theater.  Mr.  Clark  takes  up  the  chief  dramatists 
of  France  beginning  with  the  Theatre  Libre:  Curel, 
Brieux,  Hervieu,  Lemaitre,  Lavedan,  Donnay,  Porto-Riche, 
Rostand,  Bataille,  Bernstein,  Capus,  Tiers,  and  Caillavet. 
The  book  contains  numerous  quotations  from  the  chief  rep- 
resentative plays  of  each  dramatist,  a  separate  chapter  on 
"Characteristics"  and  the  most  complete  bibliography  to 
be  found  anywhere. 

This  book  gives  a  study  of  contemporary  drama  in 
France  which  has  been  more  neglected  than  any  other 
European  country. 

Independent,  New  York: 

"Almost  indispensable  to  the  student  of  the  theater." 

Boston  Transcript: 

"  Mr.  Clark's  method  of  analyzing  the  works  of  the 
Playwrights  selected  is  simple  and  helpful.  •  *  *  As 
a  manual  for  reference  or  story,  'Contemporary  French 
Dramatists,'  with  its  added  bibliographical  material, 
will  serve  well  its  purpose." 

Uniform  -with  FOUR  PLAYS.    Handsomely  bound. 

Cloth    Net,  $1.50 

Yi  Maroon  Turkey  Morocco Net,  $5.00 


DRAMATIC  LITERATURE 


The  Antigone  of  Sophocles 

By  PROF.  JOSEPH  EDWARD  HARRY 


An  acting  version  of  this  most  perfect  of  all  dramas. 
A  scholarly  ivork  In  readable  English.  Especlallly 
adaptable  for  Colleges,  Dramatic  Societies,  etc. 


Post  Express,  Rochester: 

"He  has  done  his  work  well."  "Professor  Harry 
has  translated  with  a  virile  force  that  is  almost  Shake- 
spearean." "The  difficult  task  of  rendering  the 
choruses  into  English  lyrical  verse  has  been  very  cred- 
itably accomplished." 


Argonaut,  San  Francisco: 

"Professor  Harry  is  a  competent  translator  not 
only  because  of  his  classical  knowledge,  but  also  be- 
cause of  a  certain  enthusiastic  sympathy  that  shows 
itself  in  an  unfailing  choice  of  words  and  expression." 

North  American,  Philadelphia: 

"Professor  Harry,  teacher  of  Greek  in  the  Cincin- 
nati University,  has  written  a  new  metrical  transla- 
tion of  the  Antigone  of  Sophocles.  The  translation 
is  of  fine  dramatic  quality." 


Oregonian,  Portland: 

"A  splendidly  executed  translation  of  the  celebrated 
Greek  tragedy." 

Herald,  Boston: 

"Scholars  will   not   need   to  be   urged   to  read  this 

noteworthy  piece  of   literary  work,   and  we  hope  that 

many   others   who   have    no   special    scholarly   interest 

•will  be  led  to  its  perusal." 

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"European  Dramatists" 

By  ARCHIBALD  HENDERSON 

Author  of  "George  Bernard  Shaw:  His  Life  and  Works." 
In   the  present  work  the  famous  dramatic  critic  and 

biographer    of    Shaw    has    considered    six    representative 

dramatists  outside  of  the  United  States,  some  living,  some 

dead — Strindberg,  Ibsen,  Maeterlinck,   Wilde,  Shaw  and 

Barker. 

Velma  Swanston  Howard  says: 

"Prof.  Henderson's  appraisal  of  Strindberg  is  cer- 
tainly the  fairest,  kindest  and  most  impersonal  that 
I  have  yet  seen.  The  author  has  that  rare  combina- 
tion of  intellectual  power  and  spiritual  insight  which 
casts  a  clear,  strong  light  upon  all  subjects  under  his 
treatment." 

Baltimore  Evening  Sun: 

"Prof.  Henderson's  criticism  is  not  only  notable  for 
its  understanding  and  good  sense,  but  also  for  the 
extraordinary  range  and  accuracy  of  its  information." 

Jeanette  L.  Gilder,  in  the  Chicago  Tribune: 

"Henderson  is  a  writer  who  throws  new  light  on 
old  subjects." 

Chicago  Record  Herald: 

"His  essays  in  interpretation  are  welcome.  Mr. 
Henderson  has  a  catholic  spirit  and  writes  without 
parochial  prejudice — a  thing  deplorably  rare  among 
American  critics  of  the  present  day.  »  »  •  One  finds 
that  one  agrees  with  Mr.  Henderson's  main  conten- 
tions and  is  eager  to  break  a  lance  with  him  about 
minor  points,  which  is  only  a  way  of  saying  that  he  is 
stimulating,  that  he  strikes  sparks.  He  knows  his  age 
thoroughly  and  lives  in  it  with  eager  sympathy  and 
understanding." 

Providence  Journal: 

"Henderson  has  done  his  work,  within  its  obvious 
limitations,  in  an  exceedingly  competent  manner.  He 
has  the  happy  faculty  of  making  his  biographical 
treatment  interesting,  combining  the  personal  facts  and 
a  fairly  clear  and  entertaining  portrait  of  the  indi- 
vidual with  intelligent  critical  comment  on  his  artistic 
work." 

Photogravure     frontispiece,    handsomely    printed    and 
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DRAMATIC  LITERATURE 


At  Last 

You  May  Understand 
G.  B.  s. 

Perhaps  once  in  a  generation  a  figure  of  commanding 
greatness  appears,  one  through  whose  life  the  history  of 
his  time  may  be  read.  There  is  but  one  such  man  to- 
day. 

George  Bernard  Shaw 

HIS  LIFE  AND  WORKS 

A  CRITICAL  BIOGRAPHY  (Authorized) 

By 
ARCHIBALD  HENDERSON,  M.A.Ph.D. 

Is  virtually  the  story  of  the  social,  economic  and 
aesthetic  life  of  the  last  twenty-five  years.  It  is  a  sym- 
pathetic, yet  independent  interpretation  of  the  most  po- 
tent individual  force  in  society.  Cultivated  America  will 
find  here  the  key  to  all  that  is  baffling  and  elusive  in 
Shaw;  it  is  a  cinematographic  picture  of  his  mind  with  a 
background  disclosing  all  the  formative  influences  that 
combined  to  produce  this  universal  genius. 

The  press  of  the  world  has  united  in  its  praise;  let  us 
send  you  some  of  the  comments.  It  is  a  large  demy  8vo 
volume  cloth,  gilt  top,  628  pages,  with  35  full  page  illus- 
trations in  color,  photogravure  and  halftone  and  numerous 
pictures  in  the  text. 

$5.00  Net 


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A  FEW  CRITICAL  REVIEWS  OF 

George   Bernard  Shaw 

His  LIFE  AND  WORKS 
A  CRITICAL  BIOGRAPHY  (Authorized) 
By  ARCHIBALD  HENDERSON,  M.A.,  PH.D. 
The  Dial: 

"In  over  five  hundred  pages,  with  an  energy  and 
carefulness    and    sympathy    which    deserve    high    com- 
mendation,   Dr.    Henderson    has   presented    his   subject 
from  all  conceivable  angles." 
The  Bookman: 

"A   more   entertaining  narrative,   whether   in  biog- 
raphy or  fiction,  has  not  appeared  in  recent  years." 
The  Independent: 

"Whatever  George  Bernard  Shaw  may  think  of  his 
Biography  the  rest  of  the  world  will   probably  agree 
that  Dr.  Henderson  has  done  a  good  job." 
Boston  Transcript: 

"There  is  no  exaggeration  in  saying  it  is  one  of  the 
most   entertaining   biographies   of   these  opening  years 
of  the  Twentieth  Century." 
Bernard  Shaw: 

"You  are  a  genius,  because  you  are  somehow  sus- 
ceptible   to    the    really    significant    and    differentiating 
traits  and  utterances  of  your  subject." 
Maurice  Maeterlinck: 

"You  have  written  one  of  the  most  sagacious,  most 
acute  and  most  penetrating  essays  in  the  whole  mod- 
ern moment." 
Edwin  Markham: 

"He  stands   to-day   as   the   chief   literary   critic   of 
the  South,   and  in  the  very  forefront  of  the  critics  of 
the  nation." 
William  Lyon   Phelps: 

"Your  critical  biography  of  Shaw  is  a  really  great 
work." 
Richard   Burton: 

"In  over  five  hundred  pages,  with  an  energy  and 
carefulness  and  sympathy  which  deserves  high  com- 
mendation, Dr.  Henderson  has  presented  his  subject 
from  all  conceivable  angles.  *  *  *  Intensely  interest- 
ing »  *  *  sound  and  brilliant,  full  of  keen  insight  and 
happy  turns  of  statement.  *  »  *  This  service  Professor 
Henderson's  book  does  perform;  and  I  incline  to  call  it 
a  great  one." 


DRAMATIC  LITERATURE 


Short  Plays 

By  MARY  MAC  MILLAN 
To  fill  a  long- felt  ivant.    All  have  been  successfully 

presented.    Suitable   for    Women's    Clubs,    Girls'   Schools, 

etc.     While   elaborate   enough   for   big  presentation,  they 

may  be  given  very  simply. 

Review  of  Reviews: 

"Mary  MacMillan  offers  'SHORT  PLAYS,'  a  collec- 
tion of  pleasant  one  to  three-act  plays  for  women's 
clubs,  girls'  schools,  and  home  parlor  production. 
Some  are  pure  comedies,  otherg  gentle  satires  on 
women's  faults  and  foibles.  'The  Futurists,'  a  skit 
on  a  woman's  club  in  the  year  1882,  is  highly  amus- 
ing. 'Entr'  Act'  is  a  charming  trifle  that  brings  two 
quarreling  lovers  together  through  a  ridiculous  pri- 
vate theatrical.  'The  Ring'  carries  us  gracefully  back 
to  the  days  of  Shakespeare;  and  'The  Shadowed  Star,' 
the  best  of  the  collection,  is  a  Christmas  Eve  tragedy. 
The  Star  is  shadowed  by  our  thoughtless  inhumanity 
to  those  who  serve  us  and  our  forgetfulness  of  the 
needy.  The  Old  Woman,  gone  daft,  who  babbles  in 
a  kind  of  mongrel  Kiltartan,  of  the  Shepherds,  the 
Blessed  Babe,  of  the  Fairies,  rowan  berries,  roses  and 
dancing,  while  her  daughter  dies  on  Christmas  Eve,  is 
a  splendid  characterization." 

Boston  Transcript: 

"Those  who  consigned  the  writer  of  these  plays  to 
solitude  and  prison  fare  evidently  knew  that  'needs 
must'  is  a  sharp  stimulus  to  high  powers.  If  we  find 
humor,  gay  or  rich,  if  we  find  brilliant  wit;  if  we 
find  constructive  ability  joined  with  dialogue  which 
moves  like  an  arrow;  if  we  find  delicate  and  keen 
characterization,  with  a  touch  of  genius  in  the  choice 
of  names ;  if  we  find  poetic  power  which  moves  on 
easy  wing — the  gentle  jailers  of  the  writer  are  justi- 
fied, and  the  gentle  reader  thanks  their  severity." 

Salt  Lake  Tribune: 

"The  Plays  are  ten  in  number,  all  of  goodly  length. 
We  prophesy  great  things  for  this  gifted  dramatist." 

Bookseller,  News  Dealer  &  Stationer: 

"The  dialogue  is  permeated  with  graceful  satire, 
snatches  of  wit,  picturesque  phraseology,  and  tender, 
often  exquisite,  expressions  of  sentiment." 

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The 


Gift 


A  POETIC  DRAMA 
By  MARGARET  DOUGLAS  ROGERS 

A   dramatic  poem   In  t<wo  acts,  treating  in   altogether 
new   fashion   the  world   old  story    of   Pandora,   the   first 
•woman. 
New  Haven  Times  Leader: 

"Well  written  and   attractive." 
Evangelical  Messenger: 

"A   very   beautifully   written   portrayal   of   the   old 
story  of  Pandora." 
Rochester  Post  Dispatch: 

"There  is  much  poetic  feeling  in  the  treatment  of 
the  subject." 
Grand  Rapids  Herald: 

"THE    GIFT,    dealing    with    this    ever    interesting 
mythological  story,  is  a  valuable  addition  to  the  dramas 
of  the  day." 
St.  Xavier  Calendar: 

"The  story  of  Pandora  is  so  set  down  as  to  bring 
out    its   stage    possibilities.     Told    by    Mrs.    Rogers    in 
exquisite  language." 
Salt  Lake  Tribune: 

"The  tale  is  charmingly  wrought  and  has  possibil- 
ities as  a  simple  dramatic  production,  as  well  as  being 
a  delightful  morsel  of  light  reading." 
Cincinnati  Enquirer: 

"The   love  story  is  delightfully  told   and  the-  dra- 
matic action  of  the  play  is  swift  and  strong." 
Buffalo  Express: 

"It  is  a  delightful  bit  of  fancy  with  a  dramatic  and 
poetic  setting." 
Boston  Woman's  Journal: 

"Epimetheus  and  Pandora  and  her  box  are  charm- 
ingly presented." 
Worcester  Gazette: 

"It  is  absolutely  refreshing  to  find  a  writer  willing 
to  risk  a  venture  harking  back  to  the  times  of  the 
Muses  and  the  other  worthies  of  mythological  fame. 
*  *  *  The  story  of  Pandora's  box  told  in  verse  by  a 
woman.  It  may  be  said  it  could  not  have  been  better 
written  had  a  representative  of  the  one  who  only  as- 
sisted at  the  opening  been  responsible  for  the  play." 
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DRAMATIC  LITERATURE 


Lucky  Pehr 

By  AUGUST  STRINDBERG 

Authorized   Translation   by   Velma  S<wanston  Howard. 

An  allegorical  drama  in  five  acts.     Compared   favorably 

to    Barrie's    "Peter   Pan"    and   Maeterlinck's    "The    Blue 

Bird." 

Rochester  Post  Express: 

Strindberg  has  written  many  plays  which  might  be 
described  as  realistic  nightmares.  But  this  remark  does 
not  apply  to  "Lucky  Pehr."  »  »  *  This  drama  is  one 
of  the  most  favorable  specimens  of  Strindberg's 
genius. 

New  York  World: 

"Pehr"  is  lucky  because,  having  tested  all  things, 
he  finds  that  only  love  and  duty  are  true. 

New  York  Times: 

"Lucky  Pehr"  clothes  cynicism  in  real  entertain- 
ment instead  of  in  gloom.  And  it  has  its  surprises. 
Can  this  be  August  Strindberg,  who  ends  his  drama 
so  sweetly  on  the  note  of  the  woman-soul,  leading  up- 
ward and  on? 

Worcester  Gazette: 

From  a  city  of  Ohio  comes  this  product  of  Swedish 
fancy  in  most  attractive  attire,  attesting  that  the  pos- 
sibilities of  dramatic  art  have  not  entirely  ceased  in 
this  age  of  vaudeville  and  moving  pictures.  A  great 
sermon  in  altruism  is  preached  in  these  pages,  which 
we  would  that  millions  might  see  and  hear.  To  those 
who  think  or  would  like  to  think,  "Lucky  Pehr"  will 
prove  a  most  readable  book.  *  *  *  An  allegory,  it  is 
true,  but  so  are  ^sop's  Fables,  the  Parables  of  the 
Scriptures  and  many  others  of  the  most  effective  les- 
sons ever  given. 

Boston  Globe: 

A  popular  drama.  *  *  *  There  is  no  doubt  about 
the  book  being  a  delightful  companion  in  the  library. 
In  charm  of  fancy  and  grace  of  imagery  the  story  may 
not  be  unfairly  classed  with  "The  Blue  Bird"  and 
"Peter  Pan." 
Photogravure  frontispiece  of  Strindberg  etched  by 

Zorn.    Also,  a  reproduction  of  Velma  Swanslon  Howard's 

authorization. 

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Easter 


(A  PLAY  IN  THREE  ACTS) 
AND  STORIES  BY  AUGUST  STRINDBERG 

Authorized  translation  by  Velma  Sivanston  Howard. 
In  this  ivork  the  author  reveals  a  broad  tolerance,  a  rare 
poetic  tenderness  augmented  by  an  almost  divine  under- 
standing of  human  frailties  as  marking  certain  natural 
stages  in  evolution  of  the  soul. 
Louisville  Courier-Journal: 

Here  is  a  major  key  of  cheerfulness  and  idealism 
— a  relief  to  a  reader  who  has  passed  through  some 
of  the  author's  morbid  pages.  *  *  *  Some  critics  find 
in  this  play  (Easter)  less  of  the  thrust  of  a  distinctive 
art  than  is  found  in  the  author's  more  lugubrious 
dramas.  There  is  indeed  less  sting  in  it.  Neverthe- 
less it  has  a  nobler  tone.  It  more  ably  fulfills  the 
purpose  of  good  drama — the  chastening  of  the  spec- 
tators' hearts  through  their  participation  in  the  suf- 
fering of  the  dramatic  personages.  There  is  in  the 
play  a  mystical  exaltation,  a  belief  and  trust  in  good 
and  its  power  to  embrace  all  in  its  beneficence,  to  bring 
all  confusion  to  harmony. 
The  Nation: 

Those  who  like  the  variety  of  symbolism  which 
Maeterlinck  has  often  employed — most  notably  in  the 
"Bluebird" — will  turn  with  pleasure  to  the  short  stories 
of  Strindberg  which  Mrs.  Howard  has  included  in  her 
volume.  *  *  *  They  are  one  and  all  diverting  on  ac- 
count of  the  author's  facility  in  dealing  with  fanciful 
details. 
Bookseller: 

"Easter"  is  a  play  of  six  characters  illustrative  of 
human  frailties  and  the  effect  of  the  divine  power 
of  tolerance  and  charity.  *  •  *  There  is  a  symbolism, 
a  poetic  quality,  a  spiritual  insight  in  the  author's 
work  that  make  a  direct  appeal  to  the  cultured.  *  *  • 
The  Dial: 

One   play   from   his    (Strindberg's)    third,   or   sym- 
bolistic period  stands  almost  alone.    This  is  "Easter." 
There    is    a    sweet,    sane,    life-giving    spirit    about    it. 
Photogravure    frontispiece    of    Strindberg    etched    by 
Zorn.     Also,  a  reproduction  of  Velma  Sivantton  Howard's 
authorization. 
Handsomely  bound.     Gilt  top Net,  $1.50 


DRAMATIC  LITERATURE 


On   the   Seaboard 

By  AUGUST  STRINDBERG 

The    Author's    greatest    psychological    novel.    Author- 
ized Translation  by  Elizabeth  Clarke  Westergren. 
A merican-Scandinavian  Review: 

"The  description  of  Swedish  life  and  Swedish  scen- 
ery  makes  one   positively   homesick   for   the   Skargard 
and  its  moods. 
Worcester  Evening  Gazette: 

"Classes  in  Psychology  in  colleges,  and  Medical  stu- 
dents considering  Pathology  would  derive  much  infor- 
mation from  the  observations  and  reflections  of  the 
commissioner  who  holds  the  front  of  the  stage  whereon 
are  presented  sciences  as  new  to  the  readers  of  to-day 
as  were  those  which  Frederick  Bremer  unfolded  to  the 
fathers  and  mothers  of  critics  and  observers  in  this 
first  quarter  of  the  Twentieth  Century." 
Detroit  Tribune: 

"Hans  Land  pronounced  this  novel  to  be  the  only 
work  of  art  in  the  domain  of  Nietzschean   morals  yet 
written  which  is  destined  to  endure." 
Cincinnati  Tlmes~Star: 

"It  requires  a  book  such  as  'ON  THE  SEABOARD'  to 
show  just  how  profound  an  intellect  was  housed  in  the 
frame  of  this  great  Swedish  writer." 
New  Haven  Leader: 

"His  delineations  are  photographical  exactness  with- 
out retouching,  and  bear  always  a  strong  reflection  of 
his  personality." 
Indianapolis  News: 

"The  story  is  wonderfully  built  and  conceived  and 
holds  the  interest  tight." 
American  Review  of  Reviews: 

"This  version  is  characterized  by  the  fortunate  use 
of  idiom,  a  delicacy  in  the  choice  of  words,  and  great 
beauty  in  the  rendering  of  descriptive  passages,  the 
translation  itself  often  attaininq;  the  melody  of  poetry 
*  *  *  You  may  read  and  re-read  it,  and  every  read- 
ing will  fascinate  the  mind  from  a  fresh  angle." 
South  Atlantic  Quarterly: 

"Only  a  most  unusual  man,   a   genius,  could  have 
written  this  book,  and  it  is  distinctly  worth  reading." 
Handsomely    bound,    uniform    with    Lucky    Pehr    and 
Easter  Net,  $1.25 


STEWART  &  KIDD  COMPANY 


The  Hamlet  Problem  and  Its  Solution 

By  EMERSON  VENABLE 

The  tragedy  of  Hamlet  has  never  been  adequately  in- 
terpreted. Tivo  hundred  years  of  critical  discussion  has 
not  sufficed  to  reconcile  conflicting  impressions  regarding 
the  scope  of  Shakespeare's  design  in  this,  the  first  of  his 
great  philosophic  tragedies.  We  believe  that  all  those 
students  who  are  interested  in  the  study  of  Shakespeare 
will  find  this  volume  of  great  value. 
The  Louisville  Courier-Journal: 

"Mr.  Venable's  Hamlet  is  a  'protagonist  of  a  drama 
of  triumphant  moral  achievement.'  He  rises  through 
the  play  from  an  elected  agent  of  vengeance  to  a 
man  gravely  impressed  with  'an  imperative  sense  of 
moral  obligation,  tragic  in  its  depth,  felt  toward  the 
world.' " 
E.  H.  Sothern: 

"Your  ideas  of  Hamlet  so  entirely  agree  with  my 
own  that  the  book  has  been  a  real  delight  to  me.  I 
have  always  had  exactly  this  feeling  about  the  char- 
acter of  Hamlet.  I  think  you  have  wiped  away  a 
great  many  cobwebs,  and  I  believe  your  book  will 
prove  to  be  most  convincing  to  many  people  who  may 
yet  be  a  trifle  in  the  dark." 
The  Book  News  Monthly: 

"Mr.  Venable  is  the  latest  critic  to  apply  himself 
to  the  'Hamlet'  problem,  and  he  offers  a  solution  in 
an  admirably  written  little  book  which  is  sure  to  at- 
tract readers.  Undeterred  by  the  formidable  names 
of  Goethe  and  Coleridge,  Mr.  Venable  pronounces  un- 
tenable the  theories  which  those  great  authors  pro- 
pounded to  account  for  the  extraordinary  figure  of 
the  Prince  of  Denmark.  *  *  *  Mr.  Venable  looks  in 
another  direction  for  the  solution  of  the  problem. 
*  *  *  The  solution  offered  by  the  author  is  just  the 
reverse  of  that  proposed  by  Goethe.  *  *  •  From  Mr. 
Venable's  viewpoint  the  key  to  'Hamlet*  is  found  in 
the  famous  soliloquies,  and  his  book  is  based  upon 
a  close  study  of  those  utterances  which  bring  us  with- 
in the  portals  of  the  soul  of  the  real  Hamlet.  The 
reader  with  an  open  mind  will  find  in  Mr.  Venable  a 
writer  whose  breadth  of  view  and  searching  thought 
gives  weight  to  this  competent  study  of  the  most  inter- 
esting of  Shakespearean  problems." 
idmo.  Silk  cloth Net,  $l.oo 


DRAMATIC  LITERATURE 


HOW  TO  WRITE 

Moving  Picture  Plays 

By  W.  L.  GORDON 

CONTENTS 

What  is  a  motion  picture?  How  are  moving  pictures 
produced?  What  is  necessary  to  write  photoplays? 
Prices  paid  for  plays.  Kind  of  plays  to  write.  Kind 
of  plays  to  avoid.  Single  reels,  double  reels,  etc.  Prepa- 
ration of  manuscript.  The  plot  and  how  to  obtain  it. 
Title  of  play.  Synopsis.  Cast  of  characters.  Scenario. 
Leaders  of  Sub-Titles.  Letters,  Clippings,  etc.  What 
constitutes  a  scene.  Continuity  of  scenes.  Stage  settings 
and  properties.  Entrance  and  exit  of  characters.  Cli- 
max. Limitations  of  camera.  Length  of  play.  Review. 
Time  required  to  write  a  play.  How  and  where  to  sell 
plays.  A  complete  sample  play  illustrating  every  point 
treated  upon  in  the  instructions.  A  full  list  of  over 
twenty  prominent  film-producing  companies  wanting  and 
buying  plays. 

The  following  extracts  from  letters  of  satisfied  writers, 
addressed  to  the  author,  are  very  convincing  and  be- 
speak the  value  of  this  exhaustive  treatise: 

"  Have  been  successful  in  placing  three  plays,  and  am 
awaiting  news  of  two  additional  ones.  Am  certain  I 
would  never  have  had  that  much  success  if  I  had  not  fol- 
lowed your  instructions." 


"  Your  instructions  entirely  satisfactory.  I  think  that 
any  one  with  common  sense  can  make  a  very  nice  income 
through  moving  picture  play-writing.  My  first  scenario 
has  been  accepted,  and  I  desire  to  thank  you." 

"  You  might  be  interested  to  know  that  my  first  scenario 
completed  according  to  your  instructions  was  accepted  by 
the  Essanay  Film  Co." 


"  Instructions    well    worth    the    money.     Sold    my    first 
scenario  to  the  Edison  Co." 


Handsomely  bound  in  DeLuxe  Cloth Net,  $1.00 


DRAMATIC  LITERATURE 


The  Truth 

About  The  Theater 

Anonymous 

Precisely  what  the  title  indicates  —  facts  as  they 
are,  plain  and  unmistakable  without  veneer  of  any 
sort.  It  goes  directly  to  the  heart  of  the  whole 
matter.  Behind  the  writer  of  it  —  who  is  one  of 
the  best  known  theatrical  men  in  New  York  —  are 
long  years  of  experience.  He  recites  what  he 
knows,  what  he  has  seen,  and  his  quiet,  calm,  au- 
thoritative account  of  conditions  as  they  are  is  with- 
out adornment,  excuse  or  exaggeration.  It  is  in- 
tended to  be  helpful  to  those  who  want  the  facts, 
and  for  them  it  will  prove  of  immeasurable  value. 

"  The  Truth  About  the  Theater,"  in  brief,  lifts 
the  curtain  on  the  American  stage.  It  leaves  no 
phase  of  the  subject  untouched.  To  those  who  are 
ambitious  to  serve  the  theater,  either  as  players  or 
as  playwrights,  or,  again,  in  some  managerial  ca- 
pacity, the  book  is  invaluable.  To  those,  too,  who 
would  know  more  about  the  theater  that  they  may 
come  to  some  fair  estimate  of  the  worth  of  the  in- 
numerable theories  nowadays  advanced,  the  book 
will  again  prove  its  value. 

Net  $1.00 


.'  M  new  '•••  .  '.i.  -  nwn  ; '    •• 


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